Türkiye agreed to Finland’s accession to NATO. It was the last obstacle to Finland’s membership in the military alliance.
Turkey was the last of the 30 NATO member states still to give the green light to Finland to join the military alliance. The Turkish parliament finally unanimously approved Finland’s accession to NATO just before midnight Thursday. Now Finland only needs to officially approve the candidacy by submitting the necessary documents to Washington. That could happen within the next few days.
After Russia’s invasion of Ukraine last year, Finland applied for membership at the same time as Sweden. But both files were separated after NATO members obstructed Hungary and Turkey. Hungary already approved Finland’s membership on Monday.
Sweden does not
Hungary and Turkey have not yet given permission for Sweden’s accession. Turkish President Recep Tayyip Erdogan has accused Sweden of refusing to extradite members of the Kurdistan Workers’ Party (PKK), which he considers “terrorists”, to Turkey. Relations between the two countries deteriorated after a far-right politician burned a copy of the Koran outside the Turkish embassy in Stockholm in January.
A Hungarian government spokesman said on Wednesday that Budapest is blocking Sweden’s accession because of “complaints” about Stockholm’s past criticism of far-right Prime Minister Viktor Orban’s policies.
