It has taken nine months since Finland submitted its application for NATO membership at the same time as Sweden. And now, Finland is closer than ever to being accepted into the North Atlantic Treaty Organization.
Turkey announced on Friday that it would begin the ratification process of Finland’s application to join NATO.
“We decided to start the ratification process in our Parliament for Finland’s membership,” President Recep Tayyip Erdogan of Turkey said in a press conference with the Finnish president, Sauli Niinistö, late on Friday afternoon in Ankara.
Finland Today reported on Wednesday of President Niinistö’s upcoming trip to Turkey, and we also hinted, based on Finnish media sources, that it was likely that Turkey would announce during the visit that they will ratify Finland’s NATO bid.
So far of 30 NATO member countries, only Turkey and Hungary have not ratified Finland’s application.
In the press conference, President Niinistö stressed that “95% of the members in the Finnish Parliament” voted last spring that “we have to apply for a membership.”
So the Finnish will is clear.
But “the Finnish NATO membership is not complete without Sweden,” President Niinistö said.
President Erdogan has stressed that Sweden must take a tougher approach against Kurdish separatists it considers terrorists before it can consider Sweden’s application as well.
Finland has no problems with this issue within its borders.
Meanwhile, Hungary’s prime minister, Viktor Orban, has signaled that the Hungarian Parliament may vote on Finland’s NATO bid by the end of March.
President Erdogan said later in a press conference after meeting President Niinistö that Turkey will likely complete the ratification process for Finland’s NATO membership before the Turkish general election on May 14.
Source: finlandtoday.fi
