ANKARA

Sweden's NATO membership accession was referred Wednesday to the Turkish Grand National Assembly Foreign Affairs Committee. 

A bill proposing the approval of the Protocol on Sweden's accession to NATO was signed by the Speaker of the Assembly, Numan Kurtulmus, and referred to the Committee.

"In order to advance the process, we requested concrete steps from Finland and Sweden to address our (Türkiye's) legitimate security concerns, including the removal of sanctions and restrictions they have imposed on counter-terrorism and defense industry exports," Kurtulmus said in a statement.

Finland and Sweden applied for NATO membership soon after Russia launched a war in Ukraine in February 2022.

Türkiye previously approved Finland's membership to NATO but had said it was waiting for Sweden to abide by a trilateral memorandum signed in June 2022 to address Ankara's security concerns.

Turkish officials have repeatedly stressed that it is up to Turkish lawmakers to decide on ratifying Sweden’s accession.