30 September, OSLO/STOCKHOLM (Reuters) – Following the Nordic nation’s decision to join the NATO military alliance and its consent to override Turkish objections, Sweden’s Inspectorate of Strategic Products (ISP) announced on Friday that it had lifted a prohibition against shipping military hardware to Turkey.
Following Russia’s invasion of Ukraine, Sweden and Finland applied to join NATO. However, they ran into trouble because all 30 existing members must approve the application, and Turkey objected.
As a result of Ankara’s charges that they sponsored the YPG in northern Syria, which it sees as a branch of the banned Kurdistan Workers Party (PKK), which is also regarded as a terrorist organization by the US and the EU, President Tayyip Erdogan of Turkey had vowed to veto their bids.
After Turkey’s foray into Syria to fight the Syrian Kurdish YPG militia in 2019, Sweden and Finland essentially barred the transfer of weaponry to Turkey. ISP revoked all existing permits and has not issued any new ones since, despite the absence of a legal embargo.
On the fringes of the NATO summit in Madrid in June, Sweden and Finland came to a ground-breaking agreement concerning a series of actions to allay Turkey’s fears regarding the candidacies.
The ISP stated that it started issuing export licenses during the third quarter but refused to specify which businesses or goods had received the go-ahead due to confidentially.
According to the authority, “ISP has decided to give a permit for follow-up exports from Swedish defense sector to Turkey after a thorough evaluation, taking into consideration the revised defense and security policy conditions.”
In May this year, Turkey claimed to have learned that the embargo would be lifted.
