International Report

Swedish hopes of early Nato membership are fading as Turkey continues to hold up Sweden's bid as part of a standoff with the United States. In July, Swedish Prime Minister Ulf Kristersson declared he had secured Turkish President Recep Tayyip Erdogan's support for Sweden's membership bid at the Nato summit in Vilnius and that ratification would follow shortly.But hopes of Sweden joining the military alliance by the end of this year have turned to dust, with ratification still not even on the Turkish parliament's agenda.Whether Turkey signs off on Sweden's membership depends on Erdogan's relationship with US President Joseph Biden."In July, at the Nato summit in Vilnius, President Biden and Erdogan agreed to reset their relations – a sequence of events, a deal and a handshake that would start with Turkey ratifying Sweden's EU accession in the parliament," explains Asli Aydintasbas of the Washington-based Brookings Institution.For Ankara, the sale of American F-16 fighter jets to Turkey is at the centre of the