Turkey approves Finland’s NATO membership

Turkey approved Thursday, March 30, after ten months of suspense, the accession of Finland to NATO, the last country of the Alliance to give the green light after that of Hungary. After a brief debate, during which they acknowledged the “Finland’s legitimate security concerns”the Turkish deputies voted unanimously by the 276 deputies present for the entry of this small Nordic country into the Atlantic Alliance, while Sweden is still at the door.

Turkish President Recep Tayyip Erdogan announced the lifting of his veto on March 17 when he received Finnish President Sauli Niinistö in Ankara, a decision immediately welcomed by the Atlantic Alliance. The Turkish parliamentary foreign affairs committee had approved this membership last week. Finland now only has to send its “instruments of ratification” in Washington, where the Treaty of the Alliance is kept.

Sweden’s membership still blocked

The Hungarian parliament also approved, on Monday, the accession of Finland but also blocks that of Sweden. The applications for membership of the two Nordic countries had however been submitted together last year after the invasion of Ukraine by Russia, and required the unanimity of the member countries of NATO to be approved.

Recep Tayyip Erdogan is still blocking the enlargement of NATO to Sweden by reproaching it for its passivity in the face of the presence of Kurdish “terrorists” welcomed on its soil and calling for extraditions on which the government does not have the last word. However, Stockholm hopes to complete its country’s entry into the Alliance before the next NATO summit scheduled for July in Vilnius, Lithuania.