NATO wants Sweden to join before Vilnius summit

Sweden could still become a NATO member by summer, NATO chief Jens Stoltenberg said as Finland moved ahead on its own to join the military alliance. 

Stoltenberg insisted in an interview with POLITICO that Sweden could still get its own green light after Turkey’s May elections. Turkey’s relationship with Sweden has grown especially contentious ahead of the elections, following a Quran-burning protest in Stockholm earlier this year.

“My aim remains that after the Turkish elections, but before the Vilnius summit, we can also have the ratification of Sweden,” the secretary-general said from NATO headquarters in Brussels, referencing the alliance’s annual gathering on July 11.

If both Finland and Sweden join the alliance, Stoltenberg noted, 96% of the European Union’s population will soon live in a NATO country.