Turkey’s Nationalist Movement Party (MHP) has backed the proposed ratification of Sweden’s accession to Nato by Ankara during parliamentary commissions and intends to maintain that support during the legislature’s general assembly, MHP chair Devlet Bahceli told reporters on January 23, following a meeting of his party.

MHP is the junior coalition partner of Turkey’s president, Recep Tayyip Erdogan.

On January 22, Reuters quoted unnamed sources as saying that the general assembly was set to debate the issue on January 23.

Sweden launched its bid to join Nato in 2022 after Russia's invasion of Ukraine, but Erdogan—who will sign off on the Turkish ratification if lawmakers approve it—has been slow to arrange for the ratifaction of the application. All existing Nato members must ratify the acceptance of a new member in the alliance for an accession to succeed.

The only other Nato country to have not yet ratified the Swedish bid is Hungary.

Hungarian prime minister, Viktor Orban, said on January 23 that he has invited Sweden’s prime minister to visit and negotiate his country joining the military alliance.

On social media platform X, Orban said: Today I sent an invitation letter to prime minister Ulf Kristersson for a visit to Hungary to negotiate on Sweden’s Nato accession.”

It is unclear what kind of payoff Erdogan might demand from the West in return for completing the ratification.

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.