Finland may have to reconsider advancing its NATO membership bid at the same time as Sweden if Sweden’s bid is stalled for a longer period. About that declared Yle Portal Finnish Foreign Minister Pekka Haavisto.
At the same time, he stressed that it was still too early to comment on this issue. “The number one option for the security of Finland and Sweden” is still to join NATO at the same time, Haavisto said.
In June, Finnish President Sauli Niinistö declared that his country would not join NATO without Sweden. “Sweden’s cause is ours. This means that we go hand in hand.
Sweden and Finland, neutral for decades, tabled formal offers to join NATO in May 2022, shortly after the start of a full-scale Russian invasion of Ukraine . They will only be able to become members of NATO after the ratification of the accession protocol by the 30 member countries of the union.
On Monday, Turkish President Recep Tayyip Erdogan said the country would not support Sweden’s bid for NATO membership . The statement was made after the anti-Turkish protests in Stockholm, the participants of which publicly burned the Quran and spoke out in favor of the Kurds. Ankara persecutes Kurdish organizations, calling them terrorists.
Last spring, Turkey set a number of conditions for approving Finland’s and Sweden’s NATO membership, including declaring a number of Kurdish organizations as terrorists, lifting the ban on the delivery of arms to Ankara, extradition to the Turkish authorities of a number of Kurdish and opposition figures who have been granted asylum in Sweden and Finland and are accused in Turkey of terrorism.
