Expert: "Idiotic of Turkey not to approve Sweden in NATO"

The Turkish parliament is expected to vote on Swedish NATO membership this week, according to information in several media.

- I find this quite convincing, but then I am one of those people who are sober and you should never say too much, says Turkey expert Michael Sahlin.

In the spring, NATO will conduct its largest large-scale exercise since the Cold War, Steadfast defender.

Sweden will participate, even though the country still only has so-called invitee status.

Steadfast defender includes an exercise where Article 5 is activated and where Swedish territory is covered.

The fact that Turkey has approved that Sweden can participate in the entire exercise is "a clear sign also to go ahead with the vote", according to Michael Sahlin.

"idiotic"

- It would be idiotic for Turkey to participate in a large NATO exercise that is very sharp and anti-Russian and then play with Article 5 and then not approve Sweden.

That would be very strange.

This time, the vote may therefore be lost because of Turkey's actions before the upcoming NATO exercise.

- Since Turkey has now accepted in high NATO circles that Sweden participates in this major NATO exercise, it follows that "if you have said A, you can say B".

- This then means that Erdogan takes the risk, one of his most difficult decisions it is said, to admit Sweden's membership even without guarantees that the US will deliver F16 planes.