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<\/figure>\n\n\n\n\u201cThis is a historic day,\u201d NATO Secretary-General Jens Stoltenberg said late Monday as he announced the agreement following days of intensive meetings. <\/p>\n\n\n\n
As part of the deal, Erdogan said he would ask Turkey\u2019s parliament to approve Sweden joining NATO. Hungarian Prime Minister Viktor Orban is expected to take a similar step. <\/p>\n\n\n\n
The outcome is a victory for U.S. President Joe Biden as well, who has touted NATO\u2019s expansion as an example of how Russia\u2019s invasion of Ukraine has backfired on Moscow. Finland has already become the 31st member of the alliance, and Sweden is on deck to become the 32nd.<\/p>\n\n\n\n Biden arrived in Vilnius on Monday evening and was scheduled to meet with Erdogan on Tuesday evening. Biden was also attending a meeting of the North Atlantic Council, of which Sweden is a member, in the afternoon. <\/p>\n\n\n\n It\u2019s unclear how some of Erdogan\u2019s other demands will be resolved. He has been seeking advanced American fighter jets and a path toward membership in the European Union. The White House has expressed support for both, but publicly insisted that the issues were not related to Sweden\u2019s membership in NATO. <\/p>\n\n\n\n Biden, in a statement, thanked Erdogan for committing to transmit Sweden\u2019s ascension protocol to Turkey\u2019s Grand National Assembly for \u201cswift ratification.\u201d <\/p>\n\n\n\n \u201cI stand ready to work with President Erdogan and Turkey on enhancing defense and deterrence in the Euro-Atlantic area,\u201d Biden added. <\/p>\n\n\n\n The reference to enhancing Turkey\u2019s defense capability was a nod to Biden\u2019s commitment to help Turkey acquire new F-16 fighter jets, according to an administration official.<\/p>\n\n\n\n The Biden administration has backed Turkey\u2019s desire to buy 40 new F-16s as well as modernization kits from the U.S. It\u2019s a move some in Congress, most notably Senate Foreign Relations Committee Chairman Bob Menendez, D-N.J, have opposed over Turkey blocking NATO membership for Sweden, its human rights record and other concerns.<\/p>\n\n\n\n The official, who was not authorized to comment and spoke on the condition of anonymity, said the White House had been \u201ccautiously hopeful\u201d but not certain it could get Erdogan to come around before the summit. Secretary of State Antony Blinken and national security adviser Jake Sullivan worked the phones in recent days, speaking with Erdogan as well as senior Turkish and Swedish officials.<\/p>\n\n\n\n In Washington, Menendez said he was \u201ccontinuing to have my reservations\u201d on providing the fighter aircraft to Turkey. If the Biden administration could show that Turkey wouldn\u2019t use the F-16s belligerently against other NATO members, particularly its neighbor Greece, and meet other conditions, \u201cthen there may be a way forward,\u201d Menendez told reporters.<\/p>\n\n\n\n NATO leaders will still have other big questions to address at their summit, particularly Ukraine\u2019s desire to join NATO.<\/strong> The Baltic states \u2014 including Lithuania, which is hosting the event \u2014 have pushed for a strong show of support and a clear pathway toward membership for Ukraine.<\/p>\n\n\n\n The United States and Germany have resisted that, and Biden said last week that Ukraine wasn\u2019t ready to join. Members of NATO, he told CNN<\/strong>, need to \u201cmeet all the qualifications, from democratization to a whole range of other issues,\u201d a nod toward longstanding concerns about governance and corruption in Kyiv. <\/p>\n\n\n\n In addition, some fear that bringing Ukraine into NATO would serve more as a provocation to Russia than as a deterrence against aggression. <\/p>\n\n\n\n Stoltenberg wrote in Foreign Affairs<\/strong> on Monday that the alliance would \u201cupgrade our political ties\u201d by forming a NATO-Ukraine Council, which would be \u201ca platform for decisions and crisis consultation.\u201d <\/p>\n\n\n\n Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelenskyy is expected to attend the summit on Wednesday. He plans to meet with Biden while there, according to two administration officials who spoke on condition of anonymity to discuss plans that have not been announced.<\/p>\n\n\n\n Stoltenberg reiterated that Ukraine will eventually become a member of NATO, a commitment made in 2008 under President George W. Bush. The NATO chief did not outline more specifics.<\/p>\n\n\n\n However, Ukrainian Foreign Minister Dmytro Kuleba said NATO had agreed to forgo requiring a \u201cmembership action plan,\u201d a decision that he said \u201cshortens our path to NATO.\u201d<\/p>\n\n\n\n Biden spent Monday in the United Kingdom,<\/strong> where he met with King Charles III for the first time since he ascended to the throne. After a royal welcome at Windsor Castle, they discussed mobilizing financial support to combat climate change. <\/p>\n\n\n\n The president also swung by 10 Downing Street to meet with Prime Minister Rishi Sunak. It was their sixth meeting, a reflection of close ties between the two countries. <\/p>\n\n\n\n After the NATO summit, Biden will travel to Helsinki to celebrate Finland\u2019s recent entry into NATO and meet with Nordic leaders.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":" NATO\u2019s summit will begin Tuesday with fresh momentum after Turkey withdrew its objections to Sweden joining the alliance, a step toward the unity that Western leaders have been eager to demonstrate in the face of Russia\u2019s invasion of Ukraine. The decision by Turkish President Recep Tayyip Erdogan is\u00a0a significant move\u00a0toward Sweden\u2019s membership and it will […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":8,"featured_media":35814,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"_post_source_name":"","_post_source_url":"","footnotes":""},"categories":[12],"tags":[11363,6728,8311,5178,6044,11583,7489,3862,7166,8982,6693,1384,8440,7516,6718,685,2419,9505,1195,10973,8057,5335,5345,66,5993,10840,5252,9907,9463,2471,7874,7881,5342,7181,9833,5340,12187,7155,7693,4802,7964,1198,11375,8386,3805,4931,3174,6426,5266,3457,5655,8501,11325,8840,8302,1378,9209,8122,6584,2570,3187,5180,5555,6714,10330,7231,3080,9262,11957,11487,10885,9909,11255,2354,6571,2982,3954,5436,10415,594,7932],"class_list":["post-35811","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","hentry","category-world-news","tag-aircraft","tag-alliance","tag-antony-blinken","tag-biden","tag-blinken","tag-capital","tag-chairman","tag-climate-change","tag-cluster-bombs","tag-combat","tag-congress","tag-corruption","tag-crisis","tag-dmytro-kuleba","tag-downing","tag-downing-street","tag-euro","tag-european","tag-european-union","tag-f-16","tag-fear","tag-finland","tag-foreign-minister","tag-germany","tag-greece","tag-human-rights","tag-invasion","tag-jens-stoltenberg","tag-jets","tag-joe-biden","tag-king-charles","tag-king-charles-iii","tag-kyiv","tag-lithuania","tag-meeting","tag-moscow","tag-n","tag-national-assembly","tag-national-security","tag-nato","tag-north","tag-parliament","tag-phones","tag-platform","tag-president","tag-president-george-w-bush","tag-prime-minister","tag-ratification","tag-rishi-sunak","tag-russia","tag-security","tag-senate","tag-street","tag-strong","tag-sunak","tag-sweden","tag-swedish","tag-tension","tag-travel","tag-turkey","tag-turkish-president-recep-tayyip-erdogan","tag-ukraine","tag-ukrainian","tag-ukrainian-president-volodymyr-zelenskyy","tag-uktaine","tag-union","tag-united-kingdom","tag-united-states","tag-unity","tag-upgrade","tag-victory","tag-vilnius","tag-volodymyr-zelenskyy","tag-washington","tag-white","tag-white-house","tag-will","tag-windsor","tag-work","tag-who","tag-zelenskyy"],"blocksy_meta":[],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.nsemgh.com\/api-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/35811","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.nsemgh.com\/api-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.nsemgh.com\/api-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.nsemgh.com\/api-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/8"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.nsemgh.com\/api-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=35811"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.nsemgh.com\/api-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/35811\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.nsemgh.com\/api-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/35814"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.nsemgh.com\/api-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=35811"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.nsemgh.com\/api-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=35811"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.nsemgh.com\/api-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=35811"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}![\"\"](\"https:\/\/www.nsemgh.com\/pub\/2023\/07\/IMG_1356-1024x705.jpeg\")
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