Viktor Orban invites Swedish PM to Hungary to talk NATO admission

Hungarian Prime Minister Viktor Orban invited the Swedish prime minister to Hungary on Tuesday

Jan. 23 (UPI) — Hungary’s Prime Minister Viktor Orban said on Tuesday he has invited Swedish Prime Minister Ulf Kristersson to Hungary to talk about its NATO membership.

“Today, I sent an invitation letter to Prime Minister Ulf Kristersson for a visit to Hungary to negotiate on Sweden’s NATO accession,” Orban said on X.

Kristersson did not immediately offer a public response to Orban’s invitation.

Hungary and Turkey are the lone holdouts needed to approve Sweden’s admission into the military alliance but the latter moved one step closer to accepting Stockholm when its parliamentary foreign affairs committee voted to approve its membership last month.

The vote still must be approved by the Turkish general assembly for the nation to fully move toward admitting Sweden.

An official for the AK Party, which is led by Turkish President Recep Tayyip Erdogan and holds a shared majority in parliament, told Bloomberg that the legislature will look to receive approval from the legislature to solidify Sweden’s acceptance into NATO.

Orban asserted in December that lawmakers remained cold on the proposition, however, Hungary had pledged to Swedish that it would not lag behind its counterparts in the alliance in approving its accession.

Sweden and Finland placed their bids to join the alliance at the same time to shore up the borders around Ukraine shortly after Russia invaded in 2022.

Finland became the 31st member of NATO in April 2023, overcoming initial concerns from Turkey.

Sweden’s bid, however, was derailed over conflicts with the two holdouts.

Hungary objected to Stockholm questioning the state of its democracy and Orban’s ongoing ties with Russian President Vladimir Putin since the invasion of Ukraine while Turkey had long frowned on admitting Sweden over its handling of anti-Muslim sentiment there.

The Turkish government bashed Sweden over the past summer for letting the Koran be burned during a protest started by Kurdish supporters.

The incident, and the perceived lack of a response by Sweden’s government, nearly sunk Sweden’s admission and caused Turkey to pause its support.