Turkey to start ratifying Finland’s NATO bid, Sweden may say no

The head of Turkey, Recep Tayyip Erdogan, said today, March 17, that the parliament of the republic has begun the process of ratifying Finland’s application to join the North Atlantic Alliance.

FBA Economics Today writes about it.

“We have seen sincere and decisive steps from Helsinki to fulfill the obligations taken before us to join the alliance,” the politician said during a press conference with his Finnish counterpart.

Erdogan noted that his country thanks Helsinki for supporting the republic’s aspirations to join the European Union. It is worth noting that Finnish President Sauli Niinistö paid a visit to Turkey. The leader arrived on March 16 and first visited the earthquake areas in the southeast of the Asian state.

To date, there is another NATO member that has not yet ratified Finland’s application – this is Hungary. The head of the Hungarian Ministry of Defense, Christoph Salay-Bobrovnitsky, said on March 8 that the authorities of his country are in favor of Finland and Sweden joining the military bloc, but they want the state to have more respect. The Hungarian parliament is expected to decide on the accession of Finland, as well as Sweden, on 31 March.

Erdogan, in turn, noted that Turkey will not say “yes” to Sweden if the Scandinavian country does not help in the fight against terrorism: “On the streets of Stockholm, the PKK (recognized as terrorist in Turkey – ed.) and others are demonstrating. We handed over to Sweden a list of about 120 terrorists and said – extradite them. The Prime Minister of Sweden is a good person, but the terrorists were not handed over to us.”