ANKARA, October 30. /TASS/. Turkey’s Grand National Assembly (parliament) has not yet formulated a clear-cut schedule for a debate and voting on giving its seal of approval to the protocol for Sweden’s NATO accession, a parliamentary source told TASS.
"The protocol, signed by the president, was submitted to the relevant [parliamentary] commissions for consideration. We received the document; we have it. However, it is waiting to be processed. No date has been set yet for when it will be presented to the general assembly [parliament] for discussions and voting," the source said.
He specified that the protocol was sent to the commissions on National Defense and International Affairs, with the latter body handling the bulk of the procedural work. Turkey’s parliament, however, is expected to be preoccupied in the near future with the process of drafting the budget.
Turkish President Recep Tayyip Erdogan signed the protocol on Sweden’s accession to NATO and submitted it to the Grand National Assembly on October 23. Earlier, the Turkish authorities said that Sweden’s bid could be considered once the fall parliamentary session began in October. Almost all 31 NATO allies have ratified the document thus far, with only Turkey and Hungary still yet to do so. NATO, Turkey and Sweden reached an agreement on Ankara’s prompt ratification of the protocol ahead of NATO’s Vilnius summit in July. However, Turkey set a number of conditions for its approval of Stockholm’s bid, which in particular concerned cooperation in the fight against terrorism and accelerated economic and visa integration with the EU.