Turkey Lifts Objection To Sweden, Finland Joining NATO
According to RFE/RL, Finnish President Sauli Niinisto says Turkey has agreed to lift its opposition to NATO membership bids filed by Finland and Sweden in the wake of Russia's invasion of Ukraine.
Niinisto said the breakthrough came on June 28 after he and Swedish Prime Minister Magdalena Andersson and Turkish President Recep Tayyip Erdogan met ahead of a NATO summit in Madrid and signed a joint memorandum "to extend their full support against threats to each other’s security."
The memorandum “confirms that [Turkey] will at the Madrid Summit this week support the invitation of Finland and Sweden to become members of NATO,” Niinisto said on Twitter.
"The concrete steps of our accession to NATO will be agreed by the NATO allies during the next two days, but that decision is now imminent," Niinisto said in a press release.
Finland and Sweden last month moved to abandon their nonaligned status and applied to join the military alliance, but their bids were held back by Turkey, which has accused both nations, particularly Sweden, of offering a safe haven to Kurdish militants who have been waging an insurgency against the Turkish state.
The issue threated to cloud the summit and its attempt to proclaim unity among the 30 NATO members in the face of Russia's aggression against Ukraine.
The NATO summit is expected to be one of the most important summits of the Western alliance in recent years amid Russia's unprovoked invasion of Ukraine.
NATO Secretary-General Jens Stoltenberg said that the three-day summit beginning on June 28 will agree a new assistance package for Ukraine in areas "like secure communications, anti-drone systems, and fuel."
Stoltenberg said Russia’s invasion of Ukraine has sparked a “fundamental shift” in NATO’s approach to defense, and member states will have to boost their military spending.
The meeting will chart a blueprint for the alliance “in a more dangerous and unpredictable world,” he said.
Strengthening defenses against Russia and supporting Ukraine top the agenda of the meeting, which Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelenskiy is due to address virtually.
The United States and Spain issued a joint declaration ahead of the summit condemning Russia for invading Ukraine. The declaration, which came after U.S. President Joe Biden met with Spanish Prime Minister Pedro Sanchez, said the invasion “fundamentally altered the global strategic environment.”
