by Alexis Simendinger & Kristina Karisch | The Hill
As NATO members gather today within 20 miles of the border with Russian ally Belarus, their fortified summit will focus on Ukraine’s defense needs and Monday’s news that a previously reluctant Turkey agreed to let Sweden join the Western alliance.
In a sudden reversal, President Recep Tayyip Erdoğan on Monday lifted his objections after a year of arguing that the European Union should first advance Turkey’s bid to join the EU before Sweden could join the bloc (The New York Times).
Secretary General Jens Stoltenberg announced Turkey’s decision from the summit setting in Vilnius, Lithuania, saying Erdoğan agreed to take Sweden’s bid to join the security alliance to Turkey’s parliament for ratification as soon as possible. Turkey has been a NATO member since 1952.
Most alliance members, who worry about fraying unity while confronting Russia’s 16 months of threats to the West and war with its neighbor, have backed Sweden’s entry. Stoltenberg called it a “historic step” and expressed confidence that another holdout, Hungary, would support Sweden’s entry. Hungary’s president cleared away concerns about Sweden’s membership as “technical” (NBC News and The Washington Post).
President Biden will meet privately with Erdoğan today on the sidelines of the gathering after speaking with him Sunday by phone while flying aboard Air Force One to London. Turkey has long sought 40 U.S. F-16 jets and Biden will support a transfer in consultation with Congress, Bloomberg News and The Financial Times report.
- Yahoo News: Senate Foreign Relations Committee Chairman Bob Menendez (D-N.J.), who has had a long-running hold on fighter jets to Turkey, said on Monday that he was talking with the Biden administration about F-16 sales to Turkey. Asked how long it would take for a decision, he said, “Probably, if there can be one, in the next week.”
- The Hill: The U.S. president gets a major win from Turkey ahead of today’s key NATO summit.
- BBC: Turkey in May approved Finland to be the 31st NATO member. Biden will be in Helsinki this week to applaud that change.
Biden, since Russia’s invasion early last year, has endeavored to fortify the NATO posture, acknowledging during a recent interview that there are disagreements that mean Ukraine won’t be eligible to join NATO until after the war.
Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelensky, who will meet Biden on Wednesday at the summit, conceded Monday that NATO membership, with its pact that an attack on one is an attack on all, will be out of reach for now. He said Ukraine nevertheless is asking for security commitments from alliance members amid its grindingly slow summer counteroffensive against Russia’s military. “We need this signal right now,” he said during a Monday address. Zelensky will hold a joint news conference with Stoltenberg on Wednesday at the summit (The Hill).
The U.S. continues to ramp up intelligence, weaponry, training and ammunition sent to Ukraine. Biden has courted controversy in the U.S. by agreeing this month to send lethal cluster bombs to the Ukrainian military, despite globally acknowledged risks of civilian casualties that can result from smaller explosives ejected from the larger bombs. Deaths and injuries of noncombatants led to a United Nations ban on cluster bombs in 2010.
Sweden has a strong military and its entrance would ring the Baltic Sea with NATO coastline — apart from the terrain that is Russian territory, according to The Washington Post. Military planners say NATO’s defenses will be significantly stronger as a result, an idea that Russian President Vladimir Putin perceives as a threat.
