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ANKARA — Turkey's parliament approved Sweden's NATO membership bid on Tuesday following more than four hours of debate, clearing a last major hurdle to expanding the Western military alliance after 20 months of delays.
President Tayyip Erdogan's ruling AK Party, its nationalist MHP allies, and the main opposition CHP voted in favor of the bid in the general assembly, while opposition nationalist, Islamist and leftist parties voted against it.
Erdogan will sign the bill into law, likely in the coming days, thus ending a lengthy process that has both frustrated some of Ankara's Western allies and enabled it to extract concessions.
Hungary remains the only NATO member yet to ratify Stockholm's accession.
This is a breaking news update. The original version appears below.
ANKARA — Turkey's parliament is widely expected to approve Sweden's NATO membership bid on Tuesday, clearing the biggest remaining hurdle to expanding the Western military alliance after 20 months of delays.
Turkey's general assembly, where President Tayyip Erdogan's ruling alliance holds a majority, is set to vote on the application that Sweden first made in 2022 following Russia's full-scale invasion of Ukraine.
Once parliament has ratified the move, Erdogan would be expected to sign it into law within days, leaving Hungary as the only member state not to have approved Sweden's accession.
Hungary had pledged not to be the last ally to ratify, but its parliament is in recess till around mid-February. Prime Minister Viktor Orban said on Tuesday he invited his Swedish counterpart to visit and negotiate his country joining the bloc.
"I don't see any reason to negotiate in the current situation, though ... we can have a dialogue and continue to discuss questions," Swedish Foreign Minister Tobias Billstrom told Swedish news agency TT.
Sweden's government had no comment on Turkey's parliamentary process.
Turkey and Hungary maintain better relations with Russia than other members of the U.S.-led North Atlantic Treaty Organization.
While opposing Russia's invasion of Ukraine, Turkey has criticized Western sanctions on Moscow, which has cautioned that it would respond if NATO bolstered military infrastructure in the two Nordic states.
Sweden, whose membership bid marked a historic shift in its security policy, would enhance NATO defenses in the Baltic Sea region. Ankara's delays have frustrated some of its Western allies and enabled it to extract some concessions.
Delay
When Sweden and Finland asked to join NATO in 2022, Turkey surprised some members in raising objections over what it said was the two countries' protection of groups that Ankara deems terrorists.
It endorsed Finland's membership in April last year but, along with Hungary, has kept Sweden waiting. Ankara had urged Stockholm to toughen its stance on local members of the Kurdistan Workers' Party, which the European Union and the United States also deem a terrorist group.
In response, Stockholm introduced a new anti-terrorism bill that makes being a member of a terrorist organization illegal. Sweden, Finland, Canada and the Netherlands also took steps to relax Turkey's arms-export policies.
Erdogan, who sent Sweden's bid to parliament in October, has linked Sweden's ratification to U.S. approval of sales of F-16 fighter jets to Turkey.
The White House backs the sale, and some analysts expect a deal to swiftly follow Turkey's ratification of Sweden's bid. But there is no clear time frame for the U.S. Congress to approve it, and Turkey faces some congressional opposition over delaying NATO enlargement and its human rights record.
Turkey's general assembly convened at 3 p.m. local time, with Sweden among the first of several matters to be debated.
Parliament's foreign affairs commission approved the bid last month, with Erdogan's ruling AK Party, nationalist allies MHP, and main opposition CHP backing it. Opposition nationalist and Islamist parties rejected it.
Contributing: Gergely Szakacs, Anita Komuves and Simon Johnson
