During the Swedish NATO process, Turkey's resistance to Sweden was highlighted as the brake pad, where the country, among other things, had opinions about Swedish terrorism legislation. The recurring Koran burnings are also said to have hindered access in March 2024.
But book-actual Tobias Billström, who sat at the negotiating table, paints a different picture. According to him, it was an aircraft negotiation about F-16 between Turkey, Greece, and the USA that delayed the process. There was a resistance within the USA to sell F-16 to Turkey as long as there were tensions with Greece, which eventually buried the hatchet and the sale could be carried out.
Could not say anything
It was no one who connected the triangle of aircraft sales between Greece, Turkey, and the USA, and that it was actually the important thing. But because we could not say anything, the media got stuck in the picture that there was a Turkish resistance to Sweden, he says to the magazine.
The sale is thus said to have made Turkey finally ratify Sweden's NATO application.
Smaller organization
Billström also believes that "it has become very clear" that a review of Sweden's national security council is needed, which was established when the government was appointed. There has been a storm around the national security adviser, where Henrik Landerholm was acquitted in the district court for having forgotten secret documents and his successor, ambassador Tobias Thyberg, quit after twelve hours when private pictures were leaked.
According to Billström, the national security adviser should be politically appointed and the organization should be smaller.
All special agencies have a tendency to swell if you do not limit them, he says to the magazine.
Why Billström chose to resign as foreign minister after only two years in office between 2022 and 2024, he gives no new answers to.
