Sweden closer to Nato membership as Turkish foreign affairs committee approves

Recep Tayyip Erdogan, left, shakes hands with Sweden’s prime minister Ulf Kristersson (Yves Herman, Pool/AP)

The Turkish parliament’s foreign affairs committee has given its consent to Sweden’s bid to join Nato, drawing the previously non-aligned country closer to membership in the western military alliance.

Sweden’s accession protocol will now need to be approved in the Turkish parliament’s general assembly for the last stage of the legislative process in Turkey. No date has been set.