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NATO chief to Erdogan: Sweden ‘has fulfilled obligations’ for membership

NATO chief Jens Stoltenberg on Sunday called on Ankara to drop its opposition to Sweden's bid to join the defence alliance, saying Stockholm has addressed Turkey's security concerns.

Published: 4 June 2023 16:06 CEST

NATO chief to Erdogan: Sweden 'has fulfilled obligations' for membership

NATO Secretary General Jens Stoltenberg speaks to journalists as he arrives for a Foreign Affairs Council at the EU headquarters in Brussels on May 23, 2023. Photo: Kenzo TRIBOUILLARD/AFP.

NATO chief Jens Stoltenberg on Sunday called on Ankara to drop its opposition to Sweden’s bid to join the defence alliance, saying Stockholm has addressed Turkey’s security concerns.

“Sweden has taken significant concrete steps to meet Turkey’s concerns,” Stoltenberg told reporters after meeting President Recep Tayyip Erdogan. “Sweden has fulfilled its obligations.”

Stoltenberg attended on Saturday the inauguration of Erdogan, who was re-elected to serve another five years, in a lavish ceremony joined by dozens of world leaders in the capital Ankara.

NATO member Turkey has dragged its feet over admitting Sweden to the military alliance. It and Hungary are the only two member countries yet to ratify the membership bid.

Finland formally joined the alliance in April.

Erdogan has accused Sweden of being a haven for “terrorists”, especially members of the Kurdistan Workers’ Party (PKK), a group blacklisted by Turkey and its Western allies.

READ ALSO: Nato chief to travel to Ankara to push for Sweden’s Nato membership

Turkey and Sweden will hold another meeting on Sweden’s NATO application in mid-June, Stoltenberg also announced. “We have agreed that the parties will meet again during the week that begins on June 12th,” the NATO chief said.

When asked if he believes that Sweden will be included as a full NATO member at the alliance’s next summit in the Lithuanian capital Vilnius on July 11th and 12th, Stoltenberg replied that “there is still time to make it happen.”

Earlier on Sunday, a demonstration against Swedish entry into NATO was held in Stockholm where PKK flags were flown.

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EXPLAINED: Is national service compulsory in Sweden?

Although Sweden hasn’t formally been involved in a war since 1814, the country has had some sort of conscription system since the 17th century, excluding a seven-year window between 2010 and 2017, where it was scrapped (or more specifically, “suspended in peacetime”).

Historically, it applied to men only, but was extended to include women in 2010.

Is it mandatory?

Yes and no.

When a Swedish citizen turns 18, they receive a letter from The Swedish Defence Conscription and Assessment Agency asking for information on their health, interests and education, in order to determine whether they should be called up for compulsory military service, officially known as värnplikt (“duty to protect”).

This document is sent out to all Swedes turning 18 in a given year, and it is mandatory to fill this in, with a few exceptions, such as people who receive benefits from the Social Insurance Agency or residential care homes for children and young people (like HVB-hem or SiS-hem).

Having said that, it is by no means every Swede turning 18 in a given year who actually ends up carrying out military service.

In 2023, the agency collected information on 102,286 young people in Sweden turning 18 that year, with 36,420 called up for testing.

If you don’t turn up to these tests, known in Swedish as mönstringen, you can be sentenced to brott mot totalförsvarsplikten or “crime against the total defence obligation”, which carries with it a fine of 2,000 kronor or up to a year in prison.

READ ALSO: Can dual citizens be called up for Swedish military service?

These tests at the Swedish Defence Conscription and Assessment Agency are mandatory, and include a theory test, a medical examination, eye and colour blindness tests, hearing tests, as well as an EKG test, pulse and blood pressure tests.

You’ll also need to do a general fitness test and a strength test, as well as an interview with a psychologist to determine whether you’re cut out for military training.

Each test will be scored separately, with your total points determining which course within the Swedish armed forces you’ll be assigned to. You’re allowed to express a preference, although you’re not guaranteed to get a position on the course of your choice. Military training (colloquially known as lumpen) takes between 9 and 15 months, depending on the course.

Not everyone who carries out these tests will actually be called up for military training – in 2023, 6,144 (around 6 percent of everyone turning 18 that year) were assigned a course within the Swedish army, where they were joined by an additional 1,166 individuals who had applied of their own accord.

Those who pass the tests but who aren’t assigned a position in the army are placed in the reserves, alongside people who delayed their conscription (due to their studies, for example). People in this group could be called up to perform military service if Swedish security is placed on high alert.

What about conscientious objectors?

People who for religious or political reasons do not want to use weapons can apply to carry out weapon-free military service or vapenfri tjänst.

This doesn’t mean that you won’t have to serve at all, but you could be assigned to civil basic training, which essentially means you’d help ensure that important services like healthcare, childcare or the fire services were still running if there was a crisis.

At the moment, there are no civil basic training courses for conscientious objectors running, although the government has the power to reintroduce these.

There is no programme in Sweden similar to UK Prime Minister Rishi Sunak’s plans for 18-year-olds to dedicate one weekend a month volunteering in the community, for example by “delivering prescriptions and food to infirm people”.

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