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Turkey to ratify Sweden’s NATO membership bid within weeks

There were no new demands and conditions from Ankara, Tobias Billstrom noted

BRUSSELS, November 29. /TASS/. The Turkish authorities are expected to ratify Sweden’s bid to join NATO within weeks, Swedish Foreign Minister Tobias Billstrom said.

"We are looking forward to seeing the ratification finalized. Yesterday, I had a bilateral with my colleague, the foreign minister of Turkey, Hakan Fidan, where he told me that he expected the ratification to take place within weeks," Billstrom pointed out upon arrival at a meeting of the bloc’s foreign ministers in Brussels

There were no new demands and conditions from Ankara, he added.

It is now up to the parliaments of Turkey and Hungary to complete the ratification, the top Swedish diplomat said. In response to a question, Billstrom noted that his Hungarian counterpart Peter Szijjarto had assured him that Hungary "won’t be the last to ratify" Sweden’s bid. "That means that it is more in the hands of Ankara than maybe of Budapest," he said.

Turkey and Hungary are the only two NATO countries that haven’t yet ratified protocols on Sweden’s accession to the alliance. In particular, Ankara demands that Stockholm implement its updated law on combating terrorism.

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