Sweden, Turkey hold talks at NATO headquarters

Senior officials from Sweden and Turkey arrived at the NATO headquarters in Brussels, Belgium, on Thursday to discuss the Scandinavian country's stalled bid to join the military alliance.

The meeting, led by NATO Secretary-General Jens Stoltenberg, was attended by foreign ministers, intelligence chiefs and national security advisers from both countries.

One goal of the meeting is to identify any remaining objections Turkey has to Sweden joining NATO ahead of its annual summit in Vilnius, Lithuania, next Tuesday.

Speaking to reporters after initial talks, Stoltenberg said the prospect of Sweden gaining membership to the alliance was within reach. "What we are working to achieve is a positive decision at the summit where Turkey makes clear it is ready to ratify," he said.

What is Turkey's problem with Sweden?

Sweden has made several overtures to Turkey over the past 12 months seeking to win its support.

These include lifting an arms embargo and cracking down on members of the Kurdistan Workers' Party (PKK), which Ankara has long considered to be a terrorist organization.

On Thursday, as the meeting was due to begin, a Swedish court sentenced a Turkish national to jail for "attempted terrorist financing" of the PKK.

It was the first time Sweden's new anti-terrorism legislation, introduced last year, had been used against an alleged PKK supporter. Prior cases had related to the so-called "Islamic State" group.

Turkey also recently condemned a Quran-burning protest in Stockholm, which Swedish authorities permitted citing freedom of speech.

What do NATO members say about Sweden's bid?

Sweden and its neighbor Finland moved to join NATO after Russia's full-scale invasion of Ukraine in 2022. Finland's membership bid was accepted in April, and Finnish officials will also join the talks on Thursday.

Turkey and Hungary are the only NATO members that have continued to block Sweden's bid to join the alliance. The other 29 member states, as well as Stoltenberg himself, have all said Sweden has done enough to satisfy Turkey's demands.

Last week, Swedish Prime Minister Ulf Kristersson said Hungary had twice assured him that it would not hold things up, which would leave Turkey as the sole objector.

On Wednesday, US President Joe Biden met with Kristersson in Washington.

Biden reiterated that he "fully, fully supports Sweden's membership in NATO."

"The bottom line is simple: Sweden is going to make our alliance stronger," Biden said.

zc,js/wd (AP, AFP)