What made Turkey to give approval for Sweden's accession into NATO?

An important summit took place in the Lithuanian capital of Vilnius. After that, the North Atlantic Treaty Organization (NATO) checked off an important task from its targets for the year. NATO finally touched a deal with Recep Tayyip Erdogan, the Turkish President, making Sweden enter into the military alliance. The decision was taken after a long year of negotiations.

The procedure to join NATO

A few requirements must be met by a country to join the North Atlantic Treaty Organization (NATO). These prerequisites are tolerating diversity, holding democracy, respecting the sovereignty of other nations, and more.

When a nation applies for membership in NATO, it is signed on a Membership Action Plan (MAP). The MAP is a mechanism made to use by every fresh member that joined the organization between the time frame of 1999 and 2020. Finland and Sweden, however, proved to be exceptions as they did not make use of this procedure.

When a nation meets the prerequisites and expresses the intent to be a part of NATO, the country is invited for the same in case all the other existing countries in the organization assent. This step proves to be the commencement of accession talks. Finally, the Accession Protocol is signed.

The situation in Sweden

In May last year, Finland and Sweden, two Nordic nations applied to be a part of NATO. The initial goal of NATO was to block the expansion of the erstwhile Soviet Union in Europe after the Second World War.

The two nations have always had the military "non-alignment" policy. The two nations collaborated with NATO closely earlier, but they applied for official membership only in the last year. earlier, the two nations had joint military drills with the organization. The two nations have worked so closely with NATO despite being non-members earlier by sharing intelligence and supporting the military missions of NATO.

Why was Turkey not in favor of membership of Sweden in NATO?

Turkey has often been of the stance that Finland and Sweden have links with "terrorist groups". This stance referred to the People's Protection Units and the Kurdistan Workers Party. The PKK looks for significant autonomy for the Kurdish minority of Turkey. The People's Protection Units, on the other hand, is Syrian Kurdistan's armed wing, controlling parts of the Kurdish region in Syria. The Kurdistan Workers Party is seen as a terrorist group by the European Union and the United States as well.

On the other end, Sweden has alleged Turkey for human rights abuses, particularly in the Kurdish regions, and raised questions over its democratic standards.

ALSO READ: What is "Lisa", the first regional AI news anchor in India?