Turkey’s government accuses Sweden of being too lenient toward groups that Ankara says pose a security threat, including militant Kurdish groups and people associated with a 2016 coup attempt.
A series of separate demonstrations in Stockholm, including a protest by an anti-Islam activist who burned the Quran outside the Turkish Embassy, also angered Turkish officials.
NATO requires the unanimous approval of all existing members to expand, and Turkey and Hungary are the only countries that have not yet ratified Sweden’s request to join.
A summary of the Sweden/NATO/Turkey situation. Sweden wants to join NATO. US wants Sweden to join NATO. Turkey and Sweden have had some frosty relations due to Sweden criticising Turkey in various matters.
Turkey was using the situation to pressure US to sell them F16. Then some right wing activists in Sweden (with some ties to Russia) used the opportunity to upset Erdogan by burning the Quran outside of their Embassy. Which then gave Turkey the opportunity to act very offended, and could put even more pressure on US to get the F16. NATO was then hoping for Erdogan to lose the election, which he unfortunately didn’t do (at least officially). So, now my guess is that they are back to talking about getting the F16, hence Erdogan is doing public statements about Sweden not joining any time soon.
It amuses me how Turkey is having to pull public stunts like this just to be considered for F16s, whereas before they were one of F35 recipients, but they threw that away and instead bought Russian-produced air defenses.