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Sweden on its NATO Membership: Turkey is Asking Too Much

9Jan

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Europe

Sweden on its NATO Membership: Turkey is Asking Too Much

“Sweden is confident that Turkey will approve its application for NATO membership, but we cannot fulfill all Turkish demands,” Swedish Prime Minister Ulf Kristersson said on Sunday, quoted by the Reuters agency. “Turkey has confirmed that we have done what we said we would do, but they also say that they want things that we cannot or do not want to give them,” the Swedish prime minister said on a conference on defense and security issues in the presence of NATO Secretary General Jens Stoltenberg. In 2022, Sweden, Finland and Turkey signed a tripartite agreement aimed at removing Turkish objections to the two Scandinavian countries' bids for NATO membership, Reuters recalls. "We are convinced that Turkey will make a decision, we just don't know when," said the Swedish Prime Minister and ...

Out of the shadows: Europe exposes its Russian spies

Countries in Scandinavia, a current security hot spot, are more visibly cracking down on citizens involved in Russian espionage. STOCKHOLM — Two military helicopters shattered the calm of suburban Stockholm on a late November morning, swooping over a private home in the sleepy locale of Kil in a high-profile raid on a Swedish couple accused of spying for Russia. “I couldn’t believe it when I saw the police piling into their house,” a neighbor of the arrested Stockholm couple told POLITICO. “The noise of the helicopters woke up the whole street, and we just stood on our driveways watching the action.” The rattle of helicopters in the darkness was the latest sign that European nations’ high-stakes games of espionage with Russia are increasingly being played in the open. The raid netted a...

The Swedish Air Force prepares for the next 20 years

As part of a military strategic analysis study up to 2045, the Swedish Air Force (Flygvapnet) designed its roadmap for the next two decades, which will guide its expansion and modernization. The study, conducted for the entire Swedish Armed Forces, seeks to guide decisions on defense policy towards 2045. It echoes the war in Ukraine and Sweden’s future membership in the NATO structure, which marks a turning point for the country after decades of strategic neutrality. As a NATO ally, the study presupposes an increase in the threshold for armed Russian attacks against Sweden, while changing the threat landscape and increasing the risk of military activities on the country’s borders. The outcome of the war in Ukraine is unknown and the regional and global consequences are difficult to pred...