Sweden Finally Becomes NATO’s 32nd Member; US Secy of State Blinken Calls It ‘Historic’ – News18

In a historic move on Thursday, Sweden became the 32nd member of NATO, followed by the handover of documents at a ceremony in Washington. Hailing it as ‘historic’, US Secretary of State Antony Blinken said that this marked a “strategic debacle” by Russia.

While accepting the accession documents from Sweden’s prime minister, following ratification by the 31 other alliance members, Blinken said, “Good things come to those who wait.”

“I think if you step back and think of where we were three years ago, none of this was foreordained,” Blinken further said in connection to this move.

There is “no clearer example than today of the strategic debacle that Putin’s invasion of Ukraine has become for Russia,” he added, referring to Russian President Vladimir Putin.

“It is a major step but, at the same time, a very natural step,” Swedish Prime Minister Ulf Kristersson said at the State Department.

The accession “is a victory for freedom today. Sweden has made a free, democratic, sovereign and united choice to join NATO,” he said.

Later on Thursday,  Kristersson is scheduled to visit the White House and be a guest of honor at President Joe Biden’s State of the Union address to Congress. The White House said that having Sweden as a NATO ally will make the United States and our allies even safer.

“NATO is the most powerful defensive alliance in the history of the world, and it is as critical today to ensuring the security of our citizens as it was 75 years ago when our alliance was founded out of the wreckage of World War II, the White House said in a statement.

Days after Hungary followed key holdout Turkey and became the last NATO member to sign off, Sweden ceremonially handed over accession documents to the United States, the leading force of the transatlantic alliance that provides joint security for all.

Sweden, along with Finland, which joined NATO last year, both abandoned long-standing military neutrality that was a hallmark of the Nordic states’ Cold War foreign policy after Russia invaded Ukraine in early 2022.

(with agency inputs)