Swedish government

Sweden said Saturday it was resuming aid to the cash-strapped U.N. agency for Palestinians with an initial disbursement of $20 million after receiving assurances of extra checks on its spending and personnel.

Swedish Prime Minister Ulf Kristersson arrived in Budapest on Feb. 23 for talks with his Hungarian counterpart Viktor Orban ahead of a key parliamentary vote on Stockholm's bid to join NATO.

Hungary remains the last obstacle to the Nordic country's NATO membership after Türkiye's ratification last month, but its parliament is set to vote on Sweden's bid on Feb. 26.

Hungary, the last holdout on Sweden's bid to join NATO, will vote on the issue on Monday, a senior official with the Fidesz ruling party said.

Swedish Prime Minister Ulf Kristersson will meet Hungarian counterpart Viktor Orban on Friday ahead of the key parliamentary vote.

Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelensky visited Sweden on Saturday, his first visit to the country since Russia's full-scale invasion of Ukraine last year, while at home a missile strike in the center of a northern city killed five people and wounded dozens.

Türkiye has expressed strong condemnation over a recent act by the PKK terrorist organization in the Swedish capital Stockholm.

(L-R) The flags of Finland, NATO and Sweden are seen during the NATO Foreign Ministers' meeting in Bucharest, Romania, 29 November 2022. Photo: EPA-EFE/Robert Ghement

"The Swedish government fully understands that the Islamophobic acts committed by individuals at demonstrations in Sweden can be offensive to Muslims," the Foreign Ministry said in a statement on Sunday.

Two women were detained in Stockholm after they threw "some kind of paint" at a painting by French artist Claude Monet and then glued themselves to the frame, Sweden's National Museum said Wednesday.

Alamy Photo

With around a month left for NATO critical leaders' summit scheduled to take place in Vilnius, Turkish Foreign Minister Hakan Fidan has spoken over the phone with his Swedish and American counterparts separately to reiterate that Türkiye expects Sweden to take concrete steps in line with the trilateral agreement if it wants to join the alliance.

The efforts to link Türkiye's demand to buy F-16 jetfighters from the United States with its delayed ratification of Sweden and Finland's bid to join NATO are "illogical and counterproductive," a senior Turkish official has said, repeating that these two Nordic states will enter the alliance once they fulfill their commitments on the anti-terror fight.

Türkiye will not approve Sweden's bid to join NATO as long as it continues to permit those who burn the Quran, President Recep Tayyip Erdoğan has said, repeating Ankara's favorable position for Finland's application to the alliance.