Brussels 23.01.2024 Today the Turkish parliament – Grand National Assembly – voted to approve Sweden’s NATO membership bid, bringing the Nordic country one step closer to joining the military alliance after months of delays.
Of the 346 members of parliament who voted, 287 were in favor of Sweden’s accession and 55 voted to reject it, and four others abstained.

The vote was the second step of Turkey’s ratification process after the parliament’s Foreign Affairs Commission approved the bid last month. Turkish President Recep Tayyip Erdogan will sign the protocol into law.

The outcome cleared a significant hurdle for the Nordic country’s accession into the military alliance, with Hungary now set to be the only member state that has not yet ratified Sweden’s accession.

However, on Tuesday, Hungary’s Prime Minister Victor Orban said he had invited his Swedish counterpart Ulf Kristersson to visit Hungary to negotiate the terms of Sweden’s accession.

Sweden and Finland applied for NATO membership in May 2022 following Russia’s invasion of Ukraine earlier that year. Finland joined NATO in April 2023, doubling the alliance’s border with Russia, but Sweden has faced numerous delays in its path to accession.