Washington has said the Defence Cooperation Agreement (DCA) will further strengthen the Alliance once its NATO accession is completed.
ADVERTISEMENTOn the brink of joining NATO, Sweden has signed a defence cooperation agreement with Washington that will allow the United States access to all of the military bases across the Scandinavian country. They say the deal will bolster regional security.
Swedish Defence Minister Pål Jonson said the deal, signed in Washington on Tuesday, “will create better conditions for Sweden to be able to receive support from the United States in the event of a war or crisis.”
Jonson told Swedish broadcaster SVT that it didn’t mean that “all 17 locations will be used“ but instead ”where it is most important from a military perspective for them to be able to store defence equipment, for example.”
The deal was signed at the Pentagon by Jonson and US Defence Secretary Lloyd Austin, who said that by adding the capabilities of the Swedish armed forces to NATO, ”we will get even stronger.”
The deal “sends a strong signal that we remain committed to addressing security challenges together,” Austin explained.
Sweden’s strategically important Baltic Sea island of Gotland sits a little more than 300 kilometres from the Russian Baltic Sea exclave of Kaliningrad.
The United States struck a similar deal with Sweden's western neighbour, NATO member Norway, in 2021. It is currently negotiating such an agreement with NATO members Finland and Denmark, two other Nordic countries.
Sweden and its neighbour Finland decided to drop their long-standing policy of non-alignment and apply for NATO membership following Russia’s full-scale invasion of Ukraine last year. Finland joined NATO in April.
New members must be approved by all existing members of the alliance. Turkey and Hungary are the only NATO countries that have not formally approved Sweden’s accession bid.
Turkey has delayed ratification for more than a year, accusing Sweden of not taking Turkey’s security concerns seriously enough, including its fight against Kurdish militants and other groups that Ankara considers to be security threats.
Last week, NATO Secretary-General Jens Stoltenberg said he told Turkey’s president that “the time has come” to let Sweden become a member of the military alliance.