Finland And Sweden Can Join Quickly, NATO Secretary General: We Warmly Welcome

JAKARTA - Secretary-General of the North Atlantic Treaty Organization (NATO), Jens Stoltenberg, said Finland and Sweden could join quickly if they decided to apply for membership in the alliance.

"If they decide to apply, Finland and Sweden will be warmly welcomed and I hope the process goes quickly", Stoltenberg told reporters in Brussels, Belgium.

He further said he believed arrangements could be found for an interim period between applications by the two Scandinavian countries and formal ratification in parliament of all 30 NATO members.

"I believe that there is a way to bridge that interim period in a pretty good way so that it works for Finland and Sweden", said Stoltenberg.

As previously reported, Russia has the potential to increase its defenses, including by deploying nuclear weapons, if Finland and Sweden join NATO.

Dmitry Medvedev, deputy chairman of the Russian Security Council, said if Sweden and Finland joined NATO, Russia would have to strengthen its land, navy, and air forces in the Baltic Sea.

Medvedev also explicitly raised the nuclear threat by saying there would be no more talk of a 'nuclear-free' Baltic, where Russia has the Kaliningrad exclave sandwiched between Poland and Lithuania.

"There is no more talk of a nuclear-free status for the Baltics, the balance must be restored", said Medvedev, President of Russia from 2008 to 2012.

"Until today, Russia has not taken such action and will not do so. If our hands are forced well, pay attention, we are not the ones proposing this", he stressed.

Kaliningrad was very important in the northern European theater. Formerly the Prussian port of Koenigsberg, the capital of East Prussia, it is located less than 1400 km from London and Paris and 500 km from Berlin.

Russia said in 2018 it had deployed Iskander missiles to Kaliningrad, which was occupied by the Red Army in April 1945, and handed over to the Soviet Union at the Potsdam conference.

The Iskander, known as the SS-26 Stone by NATO, is a short-range tactical ballistic missile system that can carry both conventional and nuclear warheads.