Turkey’s parliament late on January 23 gave its long-awaited approval to Sweden joining Nato.

It is expected that the bill on ratifying accession will be signed into law by Turkish President Recep Tayyip Erdogan in the coming days.

As things now stand, the only Nato member country still blocking Sweden’s path into the transatlantic military alliance is Hungary. Hungarian prime minister, Viktor Orban, said on January 23 that he has invited Swedish counterpart Ulf Kristersson to visit Budapest to negotiate on Sweden’s Nato accession. Soon after, however, Sweden's foreign minister, Tobias Billstrom, told reporters he saw no reason to negotiate with Hungary for a ratification of Stockholm’s Nato application as Hungary, unlike Turkey, did not present any conditions when Sweden was invited to join at the 2022 Nato summit in Madrid.

Turkish MPs backed the approval of Swedish Nato membership after a four-hour debate, with 287 of 346 MPs voting yes, 35 no and the rest abstaining.

Kristersson quickly responded to the vote, saying: “Today we are one step closer to becoming a full member of Nato. Positive that the Grand General Assembly of Türkiye has voted in favour of Sweden’s Nato accession.”

Nato’s secretary-general, Jens Stoltenberg, welcomed the vote. He added that he now expected Hungary to ratify Sweden “as soon as possible”, adding: “Sweden’s membership makes Nato stronger and us all safer.”

While Turkey was relatively quick to back Finland’s bid to join Nato—it applied at the same time as Sweden last year in the wake of Russia’s invasion of Ukraine—Erdogan was fast to throw obstacles in the way of Sweden acceding into Nato, pointing to the presence of individuals in the Nordic country that Ankara alleges are terrorists and militants who back the separatist and insurgent Kurdistan Workers’ Party (PKK), an organisation banned in Turkey.

Most Turkey watchers, however, remain convinced Erdogan has been after more than a crackdown on the PKK in Sweden in return for backing the Swedish Nato bid, while noting that he has also used the stalling to play up Turkey’s credentials to his domestic audience as a “power” that cannot be pushed around.

What kind of payoff Erdogan might have been demanding from the West has remained unclear.

One area to look at is defence sales. Turkey faces a pressing need to upgrade its fighter jet fleet and the US Biden administration has given its assent to a bid from Ankara to acquire new F-16 jets and modernisation kits for F-16s already flown by the Turkish air force. However, the US Congress runs a bipartisan unofficial boycott on major arms sales to Turkey, citing various disagreements with the country over matters including its acquisition of advanced missile defence systems from the Kremlin, incursions made by the Turkish armed forces into Syria and Erdogan’s disregard for basic human rights such as with the jailing of opponents. Whether the Congress will budge on the boycott to allow the F-16 deal remains an open question.

In terms of Sweden’s path into Nato, Stockholm has already signed a deal with the US giving full access to 17 of its military bases, while it has commenced the Nato integration process.