“Thank you, Mr. President, for hosting this historic summit at an important time. The first time NATO leaders will meet, 31, together, and we hope to meet very soon with 32 members with the addition of Sweden,” Biden said as he began a bilateral meeting with Lithuanian President Gitanas Nausėda, host of the summit. .
“I’m sure we’ll get it done,” Biden added.
Leaders meet in Vilnius, Lithuania, for a two-day summit that could become one of the most momentous meetings for the alliance in modern history, about a month after Ukraine’s slow counteroffensive and weeks after an insurrection in Russia became a major threat to the leadership of President Vladimir Putin.
While national security experts warned that not admitting Sweden to NATO could herald cracks in the alliance, Monday night’s announcement, which came just hours after Biden landed in the Lithuanian capital, marks a surprising turnaround for Turkish President Recep Tayyip Erdoğan, who has blocked the membership offer for more than a year.
Biden and other members have touted unprecedented unity among the alliance on the Russia war, and the move also provides the leaders with an important show of force ahead of the summit.
“We came to this important summit with a full head,” national security adviser Jake Sullivan told reporters in Vilnius on Tuesday morning.
“When the NATO summit begins, our alliance will not only be bigger and stronger than ever, but it will be more united, more determined and more energized than at any time in modern history. And that is in large part thanks to the personal leadership of President Biden,” he added.
Sullivan said Turkey’s decision was “the product of direct talks between the three parties to that deal,” but the US “had significant recent engagement with all involved,” noting that Biden hosted Swedish Prime Minister Ulf Kristersson. at the White House last week, his call to Erdoğan last Sunday, Secretary of State Antony Blinken’s meeting with his Swedish and Turkish counterparts, and his own engagement with his counterparts.
He pointed to questions about unity in the past week when he warned that the Vilnius summit will “very disappoint” Russian President Vladimir Putin.
“In much of the coverage of the summit, I would say that the rumors about the death of the NATO unit were greatly exaggerated. Every few months, the question comes up: can the West stick together? Can NATO stick together?” Sullivan said.
“Every time allies come together, that question is asked again, and every time allies come together and they answer forcefully and vehemently: ‘Yes, we can.’ Vladimir Putin has been counting on the West to break, NATO to break, the Transatlantic Alliance to break. He has been disappointed throughout.”
The Swedes will not join the alliance right away: a parliamentary procedure in Turkey will be needed to formally approve their entry and Hungary must also drop its objections, which it is expected to do now that Erdogan is on board.
Biden called for “quick ratification” in a statement after the news broke, and Sullivan said Tuesday that the United States looks forward to “welcoming Sweden as NATO’s 32nd ally in the near future.”
