Finland will not withdraw NATO application if Turkey refuses to approve Sweden’s membership

Finland will not withdraw its NATO membership bid if Turkey decides not to ratify Sweden’s membership, President Sauli Niinistö said. transmits Yle.

“We don’t want to withdraw our application and we can’t do that,” he said.

At the same time, the president expressed the hope that Finland would join the alliance together with Sweden.

Sweden and Finland applied for NATO membership simultaneously on May 18, 2022. So far, only two countries of the NATO bloc – Hungary and Turkey – have not ratified the protocols on the accession of the two Nordic countries to the alliance.

According to the agreements signed in June, Stockholm and Helsinki promised Ankara to investigate and stop any funding and recruitment activities of the Kurdistan Workers’ Party (PKK), recognized as terrorist in Turkey. In addition, Sweden and Finland pledged to consider Turkey’s requests for the extradition of suspected terrorists, while Stockholm separately announced the tightening of anti-terrorism legislation in the country.

A new round of tension in relations between Sweden and Turkey was caused by several radical actions. On January 21, far-right Danish politician Rasmus Paludan, who heads the anti-Islamic Stram Kurs (Hard Course) party, burned The Koran near the building of the Turkish embassy in Stockholm. The action was agreed with the mayor’s office, and Paludan paid the fee due for such a performance.

After that, Turkish President Recep Tayyip Erdogan declaredthat Sweden should no longer wait for Turkey to support its application for NATO membership after the scandalous actions in Stockholm. On January 24, Finnish Foreign Minister Pekka Haavisto did not rule out that his country could continue the process of joining NATO without Sweden, but then said that the Finnish position on joining together with a neighbor had not changed.