Nato prepares to include Finland, Sweden in alliance
Nato members rallied around Finland and Sweden on Sunday after they announced plans to join the alliance, marking another dramatic change in Europe’s security architecture triggered by Russia’s war in Ukraine.
Parliaments in the Nordic nations were gearing up to debate membership yesterday morning, with a large majority of lawmakers in each country now backing the bid. Over the weekend, most Nato foreign ministers who had gathered in Berlin embraced the bloc’s northern enlargement, a process that requires unanimity among the 30 allies.
With Nato membership “if we come under attack, we will get help. If another member state is attacked, we will help,” Finnish Prime Minister Sanna Marin told lawmakers yesterday. “Nato’s security guarantees would increase the deterrent impact of Finland’s defences considerably.”
“One of the main tasks of Finland within Nato would be to ensure its own defences,” she said.
The one country to voice concerns admitting the pair was Turkey, with Foreign Minister Mevlut Cavusoglu unhappy that Finland and, particularly, Sweden have had interactions with Kurdish militants who have been active in eastern Turkey.
Sweden is sending a team of diplomats to Ankara for talks this week and Nato Secretary General Jens Stoltenberg said he expects to work through the last-minute wrinkles in the enlargement plan.
“Turkey has made it clear that their intention is not to block membership,” Mr Stoltenberg told reporters in Berlin.
He said he was confident Turkey’s concerns won’t delay the membership procedure, and that his aspiration “is still to have a quick and swift process.”
Governments in Helsinki and Stockholm are set to deliver their formal applications at Nato’s headquarters in Brussels later in the week once their respective parliaments have signed off.
Turkey has long complained of insufficient cooperation from NATO and European allies in its fight with the Kurdistan Workers’ Party, or PKK, which is classed as a terrorist organisation by the US and EU, and the YPG, a related group in Syria.