Turkey and Hungary: NATO complies with the Crimea Protocol and is in violation of the Terrorism and Security of the Balkans

Turkey and Hungary later softened their stance on Finland’s accession, opening the door to its membership earlier this month. However, they remain opposed to Sweden joining – at least for now.

As a way to avoid provoking Moscow, Sweden andFinland had for decades been non-aligned with NATO. However, that changed when the Russian President Vladimir Putin ordered his troops into Ukraine and forced the two Scandinavian countries to re-evaluate their neutral status.

An overwhelming majority of NATO members welcomed their applications, approving them within weeks. But two countries – Turkey and Hungary – began to stall the process.

Any country can be invited to join NATO if they want, as long as they follow the rules of the bloc and uphold the principles of its founding treaty. Any member state can veto a new country from joining.

Turkey’s government accuses Sweden of being too lenient toward groups it deems to be terrorist organizations and security threats, including militant Kurdish groups and people associated with a 2016 coup attempt.

Sweden’s role in NATO: “Weighting the Gap between Turkey and the Middle East,” Turkey, wrote Kovács

Writing in a blog, Kovács said that relations between the two countries “have been worn down over years,” which he said makes “bridging the gap more challenging.”

Turkey is a powerful NATO member, with the bloc’s second-largest military after the United States. Its location at the southeastern flank of the alliance makes it a strategically important member. It acts as a buffer between the West and a swathe of Middle Eastern nations with a history of political instability, and where Western states have major interests. It joined the alliance in 1952, three years after it was founded.

After President Barack Obama pledged that one of the NATO’s deputy managers would be aTurk, the leader of NATO decided to stick with him.

More recently, Turkey was angered by a series of demonstrations in Sweden, including a protest by an anti-Islam activist who burned the Quran outside the Turkish Embassy.

According to Hungary’s government, certain Swedish politicians played an active role in preventing billions in European Union funds from being frozen for alleged rule-of-law and democracy violations.

“As a NATO member, we naturally had some expectations and requests regarding the security concerns of our country,” Akif Cagatay Kilic, a legislator from Erdogan’s governing party, told parliament before the vote. “I would like to underline the concrete steps and their implementation by Finland, which supported and shaped the decision we are taking here.”

Asked earlier this week about Sweden’s NATO membership, Erdogan told reporters: “There are certain things we expect of them. They must be fulfilled first.”

Sweden hopes that it can join before NATO’s July summit inLithuania because of its tough anti-terrorism laws.