The United States looks forward to welcoming Sweden as a NATO member before the alliance's upcoming summit in July and will encourage Turkey and Hungary to ratify accession, U.S. Defense Secretary Lloyd Austin said on Wednesday during a visit to Sweden.
Along with Finland, Sweden applied to join NATO in May last year. Finland's application was processed in record time and it became the thirty-first member of the alliance earlier this month.
"We look forward to soon welcoming Sweden as the 32nd (member of NATO). To be clear, we look forward to that to happen before the summit in July," Austin told a news conference.
"We encourage our allies, Turkiye and Hungary, to ratify Sweden's accession as soon as possible."
Sweden's accession has been held up by Turkey and Hungary who have yet to ratify Sweden as a member.
Austin was in Sweden to hold talks with Defence Minister Pal Jonson about the war in Ukraine and Sweden's NATO application.
The U.S. defence secretary's visit also coincides with Sweden's biggest military exercise for more than a quarter century, Aurora 23.
Around 700 U.S. marines will take part in the exercise as well as troops from Britain, Finland, Poland, Norway, Estonia, Latvia, Lithuania, Ukraine, Denmark, Austria, Germany and France.
In total, around 26,000 military personnel will take part both in exercises around Sweden on land, at sea and in the air.
(Reporting by Simon Johnson; Additional reporting by Phil Stewart and Idrees Ali in Washington, Editing by Terje Solsvik, Niklas Pollard and Raissa Kasolowsky)
