(Dan Tri) – Sweden has become the 32nd member of the North Atlantic Treaty Organization (NATO) after the document formalizing Stockholm’s accession to the bloc took effect on March 7.
Swedish Prime Minister Ulf Kristersson spoke at a press conference in Stockholm in February (Photo: Reuters).
The admission ceremony of Sweden into NATO was held in Washington, USA with the participation of Swedish Prime Minister Ulf Kristersson.
In the accession document, the US Secretary of State announced that all conditions for Sweden to become a full member of NATO had been met and that the protocol confirming Stockholm’s membership took effect on January 7.
The White House said `Sweden becoming a NATO ally will make America and its allies even safer.`
For NATO, the admission of Sweden and Finland – two countries that share a 1,340km border with Russia – is the most significant expansion of the bloc in decades.
Sweden would benefit from NATO’s principle of collective defense, under which an attack on one member state is considered an attack on the entire alliance.
Sweden will add advanced submarines and a fleet of domestically produced Gripen fighter jets to NATO forces, and become an important link between the Atlantic and the Baltic.
Russia has repeatedly warned that it will respond to NATO’s expansion closer and closer to Russia’s borders.
Former Russian President Dmitry Medvedev said that Moscow could deploy nuclear weapons and hypersonic missiles in the Russian suburbs of Kaliningrad, if Finland and Sweden join NATO.
Deciding to abandon their neutrality policy, Sweden and Finland jointly applied to join NATO in May 2022 after Russia launched a military campaign in Ukraine.
Finland was admitted to the bloc in April 2023, causing NATO’s border with Russia to double.
Swedish officials said the war between Russia and Ukraine caused the country to reconsider the neutrality policy that it had historically promoted.
Swedish Foreign Minister Tobias Billstrom announced in January that the country’s membership in the US-led NATO military alliance is `the biggest change in Swedish security policy in more than 200 years.`
Mr. Billstrom warned that Russia would become `a serious threat to the security of Sweden and Europe in the near future.`
Speaking about Sweden’s future role in NATO, Prime Minister Kristersson once affirmed that `possessing nuclear weapons on our territory in peacetime is completely possible`.
