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Austin: Turkey and Hungary to approve Sweden's request to join NATO before July

2023-04-20 20:35:58, Kosova & Bota CNA

Austin: Turkey and Hungary to approve Sweden's request to join NATO before

US Defense Secretary Lloyd Austin met his Swedish counterpart near Stockholm on Wednesday, a rare visit intended to show Washington's support for Sweden's NATO membership. VOA Pentagon Correspondent Carla Babb brings us the report from a Swedish naval base.

Pentagon chief Lloyd Austin watched demonstrations by Swedish military forces from aboard a warship in the Baltic Sea. This marks the first visit to Sweden by a US defense secretary in more than two decades.

The increased interest in the Swedish military is seen as a manifestation of American support for Sweden's NATO membership.

" To be clear, we expect this to happen before the July summit. We encourage our allies, Turkey and Hungary, to ratify Sweden's accession protocol as soon as possible ," said Secretary Austin.

Swedish Defense Minister Pal Jonson said that the country would only be strengthened by being part of the alliance.

" Sweden feels more secure now that it has received the invitation to join NATO. We think we can provide strategic depth to the alliance, while also making it better and more effective, so that it can show preventive and defensive capabilities, and not only for the Baltic countries," said Minister Jonson .

Sweden has sea caves used for military purposes and a host of islands scattered across the Baltic Sea, locations important to the defense of NATO allies in the region in the event of an attack by an adversary such as Russia.

" So, if we were ever faced with such a scenario, we would want the upper part of the Baltic Sea to be under the control of a NATO member country. For this reason, Sweden's position is central ," says Michael O'Hanlon, representative of the Brookings Institute.

Sweden and neighboring Finland, which became a NATO member earlier this month, asked to join the alliance after Russia's brutal attack on Ukraine. Analysts say that Moscow intends to break up NATO, but the member countries of the alliance as well as the partner countries, which hope to soon become part of it, say that the military organization is stronger than ever./ VOA