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SWEDEN AND TURKEY

Swedish negotiators in Turkey on Wednesday for renewed Nato talks

Sweden's chief Nato negotiator Oscar Stenström is travelling to Ankara on Wednesday to hold his first talks with Turkey over Nato since the country's presidential election at the end of last month.

Published: 13 June 2023 16:03 CEST

Swedish negotiators in Turkey on Wednesday for renewed Nato talks

Sweden's chief negotiator with Turkey, Oscar Stenström, during a previous visit to Ankara in November 2011. Photo: Henrik Montgomery/TT

Stenström, together with Jan Knutsson, the top civil servant in Sweden’s foreign ministry, will meet Akif Cagatay Kilic, the new security advisor appointed by Turkey’s president Recep Tayyip Erdogan following his victory in the second round of the country’s election on on May 28th.

At the talks the two sides will discuss Sweden’s membership of Nato and the extent to which the country has fulfilled its promises in the so-called “trilateral memorandum” between Turkey, Sweden and Finland signed at Nato’s summit in Madrid last year.

Neither Sweden’s foreign minister, Tobias Billström, nor Hakan Fidan, who was appointed Turkey’s new foreign minister on June 3rd, will attend the talks.

Kilic said in an interview on Swedish TV on Sunday that Sweden was closer to fulfilling the conditions for winning Turkish backing for its Nato membership than it had been a year ago, but added that there were still issues that need to be discussed.

On June 1st, Sweden’s new terror financing law came into force, potentially making it easier to prosecute supporters of the PKK terror group in Sweden, and Sweden’s government on Monday announced that it had approved the extradition of a Turkish citizen wanted by Turkey for drug smuggling crimes.

The man has claimed that the real reason for his extradition is his support for the PKK, a Kurdish pro-independence miltiia classed as a terror organisation by Sweden, the EU and the US.

The meeting will also be attended by Stian Jenssen, chief of staff of Nato chief Jens Stoltenberg and Jukka Salovaara, the most senior civil servant in the Finnish foreign department.

Hungary and Turkey are the only two Nato members yet to approve Sweden’s bid to join the security alliance, with the latter calling on Sweden to take stronger action against PKK sympathisers and other people it sees as terrorists living in Sweden.

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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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