Erdogan endorses Finnish NATO bid
QAMISHLI, Syria (North Press) – Turkish President Recep Tayyip Erdogan announced on Friday that measures for the ratification of Finland’s NATO bid are set to begin, paving the way for the country to join the military bloc ahead of Sweden.
Erdogan made his remarks during a joint press conference with his Finnish counterpart, Sauli Niinisto, following their meeting in Ankara.
The Finnish president arrived in Turkey on March 16 and visited areas hit by the February earthquakes, which killed more than 52,000 people in Turkey and Syria.
Speaking on the trilateral memorandum of understanding between Turkey, Finland, and Sweden, Erdogan said, “We have seen that Finland has taken authentic and concrete steps.”
He added, “This sensitivity for our country’s security and, based on the progress that has been made in the protocol for Finland’s accession to NATO, we have decided to initiate the ratification process in our parliament.”
He said he hoped the vote for ratification at the Turkish parliament would take place before the Turkish presidential and parliamentary elections, scheduled for May 14.
The Turkish president noted that “with Finland’s membership, NATO will become stronger”.
Finland’s leader, Niinisto, welcomed Erdogan’s approval for his country’s NATO bid, adding that “a Finnish NATO membership is not complete without Sweden.”
Finland and Sweden formally applied to join NATO in May 2022, prompted by Russia’s invasion of Ukraine in February. Turkey and Hungary, as the sole outliers, have dragged their feet on recognition until now.
Turkey rejected the two Nordic countries’ bid for NATO membership under the pretext that they support the Kurdistan Workers’ Party (PKK), a Kurdish militia active in Turkey, as well as the Democratic Union Part (PYD) and the People’s Protection Units (YPG), Kurdish groups in Syria.
Protests in Stockholm, in which a Quran was burned, in addition to another protest, in which an effigy of the Turkish president was hung upside down, angered Turkish officials and gave Ankara a pretext to put Sweden’s NATO accession on ice.
Reporting by Saya Muhammad