White House to host Sweden’s prime minister

WASHINGTON — President Joe Biden will host Sweden’s prime minister at the White House on Wednesday in a show of solidarity as the United States presses for the Nordic nation’s entry into NATO, a bid stalled by two members of the Western military alliance.

Biden and Prime Minister Ulf Kristersson plan to “review our growing security cooperation and reaffirm their view that Sweden should join NATO as soon as possible,” the White House said in a statement Saturday. The leaders also will discuss China and the war in Ukraine.

Sweden and neighbor Finland dropped their long-standing military neutrality after Russia invaded Ukraine in February 2022, and they applied for NATO membership, seeking protection under the organization’s security umbrella.

Finland, which shares an 832-mile border with Russia, joined NATO in April. Sweden, which has avoided military alliances for more than 200 years, has seen its ascension delayed by Turkey and Hungary; NATO requires the unanimous approval of all members to expand.

NATO had hoped the road to Sweden’s membership would be smoothed out before the alliance’s summit July 11-12 in Vilnius, the capital of Lithuania. Sweden’s entry would be a highly symbolic moment and the latest indication of how Russia’s war is driving countries to join the alliance.

But Turkish President Recep Tayyip Erdogan has resisted, with his government accusing Sweden of being too lenient toward groups that it says pose a security threat, including militant Kurdish organizations and people associated with a 2016 coup attempt in Turkey.

Last week, he condemned Sweden over a Quran-burning protest. Swedish police allowed the protest outside a mosque in central Stockholm, citing freedom of speech after a court overturned a ban on a similar Quran-burning.

NATO Secretary-General Jens Stoltenberg said he would gather senior officials from Turkey, Sweden and Finland on Thursday to try to overcome Turkey’s objections.