Turkish President Recep Tayyip Erdogan called on parliament on Friday to accept Finland’s application to join the North Atlantic Treaty Organization (NATO).
“We have decided to start the process of Finland’s accession to NATO in our parliament,” Erdogan said after receiving his Finnish counterpart, Sauli Niinistö, in Ankara.
Of the 30 members of the Transatlantic Alliance, 28 approved the integration request of the European country. Only the approval of Turkey and Hungary is missing. The Hungarian government announced on Thursday that it will submit the request to parliament for a vote on March 27.
In June 2022, NATO welcomed the candidacies of Finland and Sweden. Both ended decades of military misalignment resulting from the Russian offensive in Ukraine.
Turkey had made the two countries’ approval of accession conditional on them providing guarantees that they would no longer provide protection to Kurdish militants from the Kurdistan Workers’ Party (PKK), whom it accuses of being “terrorists”.
Erdogan continues to block Sweden’s accession, but he acknowledged that Finland has taken “concrete steps” in recent months to comply with its demands.
Source: DN
