The Turkish parliament has given an initial favorable opinion on Sweden's entry into NATO. The Foreign Affairs Committee of the Ankara Assembly has given approval to the accession protocols for Stockholm, signed by President Recep Tayyip Erdogan.
The approval process was not without obstacles; in November, the Foreign Affairs Committee temporarily blocked the text, expressing concerns about Ankara's alleged Swedish support for groups considered terrorist. Currently, Turkey is the only NATO member, together with Hungary, to have not yet given its consent to the expansion of the Alliance.
However, with the decision taken by the Commission, it seems that the path to approval is closer. The protocols will now have to be ratified by the Chamber, where Erdogan's AKP party holds the majority of seats. The vote could take place in the next few days.
The Secretary General of the Alliance Jens Stoltenberg welcomed the vote, while the US State Department praised Ankara's decision, hoping for full ratification by parliament quickly.
Recently, Erdogan had discussed with American President Joe Biden about Sweden's entry into NATO, linking the issue to the sale of F-16 fighter jets by the United States to Turkey. Erdogan had stated that positive developments from the United States regarding the F-16s would accelerate the Turkish parliament's favorable opinion on Sweden. Erdogan had received reassurances from Biden on Congress' willingness to approve the sale of the fighter jets.
Turkey's request to purchase F-16s dates back to 2019, following Ankara's exclusion from the military cooperation program on F-35 fighters after acquiring S-400 missiles from Moscow, a move considered by NATO as a threat to the security of the Alliance.
Russia locks down its Northern Military District
Russia will soon deploy its new howitzers in the Northern Military District, which borders Finland and Norway. This was declared by the head of the Russian defense giant Rostec. Testing of the new self-propelled artillery units Coalition-SV have been completed and large-scale production has already started, he said yesterday in an interview with the Russian news agency RIA, Sergei Chemezov, the head of Rostec: “I think they will appear there (in the Northern Military District) soon, since howitzers of this class are needed to have an advantage over Western artillery models in terms of range”.
In 2021, Russian President Vladimir Putin changed the status of the Russian Northern Fleet, whose area of responsibility was mainly the Russian Arctic, the Northern Military District, also incorporating the Murmansk region, which borders Finland and Norway. After invading Ukraine in February 2022, Moscow accused “the West” of staging a proxy war with Russia and warned that Moscow would increase the deployment of military forces on its western borders, following demand of Finland's accession to NATO.
In December, Russian state news agency TASS reported that single Coalition-SV howitzers had already been deployed to the front in Ukraine. The howitzers, with a range of up to 70 kilometers (44 miles), are equipped with a modern 2 mm 88A152 cannon with a firing rate of more than 10 rounds per minute, as well as a modern system for automating the cannon's aiming processes , target selection and navigation.
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