Turkey will ratify in the coming weeks the entry of finland to the NATO. Sweden will have to keep waiting. This was explained this Friday by the Turkish president, Recep Tayyip Erdoganin a joint press conference with his Finnish counterpart, Sauli Niinistowho has traveled to the Turkish capital, Ankara, to receive the news, which has already been rumored for a few days. After this announcement, Hungary, the other NATO country that has not yet ratified the accession of both Nordic states, has advanced that after several postponements on March 27 it will vote for the entry of Finland, also leaving Sweden on the sidelines. In order for a country to join the Alliance, all parliaments of all member countries they must ratify the entry of this new State.
“Turkey is one of the countries that most fervently defends the policy of NATO open doorsbut we believe that our security must be considered, and that is how we mark it in the trilateral agreement that we signed in Madrid with Sweden and Finland”, Erdogan said this Friday, referring to the pact that the Turkish, Finnish and Swedish governments reached at the summit of the Atlantic Alliance of Madrid last summer, through which the two Nordic countries were able to start their accession process to NATO.
“Since that signing, Finland has given concrete stepsso today we decided to start the ratification process from our Parliament to the Finnish entrance. Let’s hope this is something beneficial for our country and for the entire Alliance. We believe that Finland has and will have a very important role in strengthening NATO”, the Turkish president continued.
Now, in the words of Erdogan, it is expected that the Turkish Parliament will be able to carry out this ratification in the coming weeks. Time is pressing, because Turkey will hold parliamentary and presidential elections on May 14, and the Turkish lower house will be dissolved in mid-April. Therefore, Finnish ratification is expected to arrive before that date; that of Sweden, Erdogan has said, You’ll have to wait.
“Our neighbor”
“This step is very important for Finland,” Niinistö told Erdogan, “so thank you. But we have a neighbor, Sweden, with whom we share much more than goals and desires… I have the feeling that our NATO membership is not complete without them. With Sweden we have a infinite connections; we are sister countries. I hope in the Vilnius summitNATO already has 32 members”.
This summit will take place in July, it will be after turkish electionsand has been set as a psychological limit for the Anatolian country to finally ratify Sweden’s accession to the Atlantic Alliance. Many experts believe that the Turkish ban on the Scandinavian country is due to the fact that Erdogan, in electoral campaignseeks to show himself as a strong man before Europe.
Related news
The task of convincing the Turkish president – if it continues to be so after the elections – is expected to be complicated. “We have our Red lines in the fight against terrorismand we delivered to Sweden a list with 124 terrorists that we want them to be extradited to our country. But they haven’t. The Swedish Prime Minister can be very good personOf course, but what matters to us are the concrete steps. And they have not taken it & rdquor ;, Erdogan has complained.
Sweden, as requested by Turkey in the Madrid trilateral agreement, has adapted its anti-terrorism law to the Turkish demands, but the Government in Stockholm has explained on several occasions that it cannot hand over the alleged “terrorists” that Turkey is asking for, because it is the swedish justice the one that decides on extraditions, and it considers that the deportees, if sent to Turkey, would not have access to a fair trial.