Sweden Faces US Pressure to Join NATO Despite Reluctance, Turkish Media Claims

Sweden is doing its utmost to avoid becoming a member of NATO, but Washington is exerting pressure on Stockholm, which wants to use the country as a foothold for access to resources in the Arctic region, a Turkish newspaper wrote on Thursday.

The Turkish media claimed that Stockholm has an ulterior motive in resorting to various provocations with Islamic scriptures in order not to get Turkiye's approval to join NATO.

"Sweden is doing everything it can to avoid becoming a member of NATO. It is trying to use Turkiye as an excuse. If it really wanted to become a NATO member, none of this would have happened. It would have reached a real compromise with Turkiye. It wouldn't have led to provocative actions like the burning of the Quran. On the contrary, in the last few days Sweden is doing everything to avoid reconciliation. Why? Because it doesn't want to join NATO. There are both strategic and social reasons for this," the publication wrote.

The article recalls that Swedish foreign policy is based on the strategic tradition of "active neutrality".

"Thanks to its geographical location, lack of invasion threats and access to open seas, Sweden is a country that can reap the benefits of international trade while maintaining political and military neutrality," the publication notes.

Taking political sides and joining military alliances are unnecessary expenses for Sweden and could cause more harm than good. That could be the reason why Sweden has not been a member of a military alliance for almost 200 years.

"The war in Ukraine is not a convincing justification. Sweden, which did not feel obliged to join NATO even during the Cold War, will not join NATO because of the invasion of Ukraine. Besides, it does not share a border with Russia," the article points out.

The publication notes that after Finland became a member of NATO, Sweden effectivey received NATO protection and can be defended without being a member of the alliance.

According to the article, the United States has a strong desire for Sweden to become a member of NATO, and there are two main reasons for this. First, the United States wants to use Sweden as a strategic foothold to access resources in the Arctic region. Second, the United States sees NATO as a means of exerting control. It advocates that all EU members should also be NATO members, to avoid a situation where a country is in the EU but not in NATO.

This approach ensures that all countries are united under American influence. The United States defines European security as a state of control rather than a zone of international cooperation, with the goal of establishing NATO as a mechanism for managing Europe rather than an alliance against Russia. Consequently, this unity will allow the West to remain cohesive under American authority, allowing the United States to shift its focus to other geographical areas.

Amid the Ukrainian conflict, Finland and Sweden applied for NATO membership in May 2022. Admission to the alliance requires the approval of all NATO members and the completion of legal procedures. At the Madrid Summit in late June 2022, all NATO countries agreed to the accession of Sweden and Finland. The process of ratifying the applications in the national parliaments of the member states then began.

By early 2023, 28 out of 30 NATO members had ratified the Swedish and Finnish applications. However, Hungary and Turkiye wanted to consider the Swedish application separately from the Finnish one. On the night of March 31, the ratification of the Finnish application to NATO by all members of the alliance was completed, and on April 4, Finland became the 31st member of NATO. Hungary and Turkiye have not yet approved the Swedish application.