Turkish President Recep Tayyip Erdogan said on March 17 that the country's parliament would begin the process of ratifying Finland's accession to NATO, adding that Sweden needed to "show" more if it wanted to join the military alliance.
NATO member countries immediately responded positively.
Speaking in Ankara, alongside his visiting Finnish counterpart, Turkish President Tayyip Erdogan said: “We have seen that Finland has taken sincere and concrete steps to implement its commitments in the trilateral memorandum. Therefore, we have decided to initiate the process of ratifying Finland’s accession to NATO in the Turkish Parliament, based on Finland’s progress in addressing our security concerns. In addition, we will continue our negotiations with Sweden based on the principles of the alliance and our approach to the fight against terrorism.”
The Turkish president hopes that parliament will approve the proposal before the May 14 election. For his part, Finnish President Sauli Niinisto is very pleased with the move by Turkish authorities.
President Erdogan and the NATO logo. (Photo: Getty)
“ As for Finland's NATO membership - it's good to hear this news, we understood earlier that you had made your decision and today's signing confirms that the Turkish Parliament has started working on ratifying Finland's membership. Certainly, for all of Finland, this is very important ."
However, the Swedish Foreign Minister – a country that wants to join NATO with Finland – also expressed regret at the decision of an important NATO member, Turkey: “ Congratulations. As we expected, Turkey announced today that it aims to continue approving Finland's application for NATO membership but not Sweden's at the moment, and that is a development we did not want but we were prepared for. We and our partners are working hard to make Sweden a member of NATO. The question is when Sweden becomes a member, not if .”
Yesterday, the US - the "leading" country of NATO welcomed the announcement of Turkish President Tayyip Erdogan. US National Security Advisor Jake Sullivan said that Sweden and Finland are both strong partners, capable of sharing NATO values, and will strengthen the Alliance as well as contribute to European security, and expressed confidence that both countries will become members of NATO as soon as possible.
NATO Secretary General Jens Stoltenberg also welcomed Turkey's decision to move forward with ratifying Finland's NATO membership: "I welcome Turkey's decision today. This will strengthen the security of Finland, Sweden and NATO. I hope that the Turkish parliament will vote on ratification as soon as possible."
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