Turkey’s parliament on Tuesday night approved Sweden’s bid to join NATO after more than four hours of debate, clearing the last major obstacle to expanding the Western military alliance after 20 months of delays, Reuters reported.

Sweden’s request to join NATO was sent by President Recep Tayyip Erdogan to the Turkish legislature last October.

Turkey’s general assembly, where President Tayyip Erdogan’s ruling alliance holds a majority, met on Tuesday to discuss Sweden’s request, some 20 months after it applied to join NATO following Russia’s invasion of Ukraine.

The ruling AKP party, its nationalist allies the MHP and the main opposition CHP voted in favor of the candidacy at the general assembly, while nationalist, Islamist and leftist opposition parties voted against.

Erdogan is likely to pass the law in the coming days, ending a lengthy process that has frustrated some of Ankara’s Western allies and allowed it to make concessions, Reuters said.

Sweden is now only waiting for the green light from Hungary to join the 31-member North Atlantic Treaty Organization.

Hungary will no longer be able to keep its word

Thus, Hungary remains the only NATO member that has not yet approved Sweden’s application for membership. Budapest has promised it will not be the last ally to ratify Sweden’s entry, but Hungary’s parliament is on recess until around mid-February.

Hungarian Prime Minister Viktor Orbán announced on Tuesday that he had invited the Swedish Prime Minister to Budapest for talks on his country’s accession to the NATO military alliance.

Turkey and Hungary have better relations with Russia than other NATO members. Disapproving of Russia’s invasion of Ukraine, Turkey has criticized Western sanctions against Moscow, which has warned it will retaliate if NATO builds military infrastructure in the two northern states.

When Sweden and Finland applied to join NATO in 2022, Turkey surprised some members of the alliance by raising objections on the grounds that the two countries would protect groups Ankara considers terrorists. Turkey approved Finland’s entry last April, but left Sweden waiting along with Hungary.

Ankara called on Stockholm to strengthen its position against local members of the Kurdistan Workers’ Party (PKK), which the European Union and the United States also consider a terrorist group. In response, Sweden introduced a new anti-terror bill.