JAKARTA - President Recep Tayyip Erdogan said he would give his blessing on Friday for Turkey's ratification regarding the membership of the North Atlantic Treaty Organization (NATO) proposed by Finland.
Speaking in Ankara with his Finnish counterpart, President Sauli Niinisto, President Erdogan said, Helsinki received his blessing from Turkey after taking concrete steps to keep his promise, in taking firm action against what Ankara considered terrorists and reopening arms exports.
It is known that parliaments of all NATO members, currently 30 countries, must ratify the membership of countries that wish to join. Finland will later become the latest member of NATO, after North Macedonia joins the trans-Atlantic pact in 2020.
"We have decided to start the Finnish accession ratification process to NATO in our parliament," President Erdogan told reporters after meeting with President Niinisto, adding he hoped parliament would support the offer before the general election on May 14.
Meanwhile, President Niinisto welcomed the decision and called it "very important" to Finland, which is directly adjacent to Russia. He added that his neighboring country, Sweden, must also join this alliance.
Finlandiya Cumhurbaşkanı Sayın Sauli Niinistö ve heyetini Ankara’da misafir etmekten memnuniyet duyduk.Sayın @Niinisto ile görüşmelerimizde, Türkiye - Finlandiya münasebetlerini geliştirme yönündeki ortak irademizi teyit ederken önümüzdeki dönemde atacağımız adımları ele aldık.… https://t.co/JSi1fgIkGS pic.twitter.com/GATKe3ttmo
— Recep Tayyip Erdoğan (@RTErdogan) March 17, 2023
In response to the Russian invasion of Ukraine, Sweden and Finland filed a request last year to join NATO, but faced unexpected objections from Turkey, which joined in 1952.
Turkey says that Stockholm harbors members referred to by Turkey as terrorist groups, especially the Kurdish militant group PKK, a charge Sweden denies.
Previously, Sweden, Finland, and Turkey agreed on a deal last year aimed at addressing Turkey's concerns.
Ankara suspended talks in January after a far-right politician burned a copy of the Muslim holy book, the Al-Qur'an, in Stockholm, but low-level talks resumed in Brussels last week.
Apart from Hungary, whose ruling party has said it supports the two Nordic offers but is delaying its move, Turkey is the only NATO member who has not yet given the green light to Finland and Sweden.
Ankara will continue discussions with Stockholm on issues related to terrorism and offers for NATO membership will depend directly on the steps taken.
The Turkish parliament is expected to ratify Finland before closing in mid-April, before the parliamentary and presidential elections scheduled for May 14.
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