Turkey backs Finland, snubs Sweden for NATO membership
BRUSSELS — In May 2022, when Finnish and Swedish officials announced their intention to join the NATO alliance, in a historic shift for both countries, there was talk of “a quick ratification.”
But the path to membership has been more difficult than initially envisioned. This week, Finnish officials traveled to Turkey to try to seal the deal, while Swedish officials stayed home.
Turkish President Recep Tayyip Erdogan has played spoiler for much of the past 10 months. On Friday, he announced that Finland’s membership request was being sent to Turkey’s parliament for ratification, paving the way for the alliance to grow.
But Mr. Erdogan will not sign off on Sweden’s bid without additional steps, meaning the Nordic neighbors who vowed to join NATO “hand in hand” will not, in fact, join together.
At a joint news conference with Finnish President Sauli Niinisto on Friday in Ankara, Turkey’s capital, Mr. Erdogan credited Finland with taking “sincere and concrete steps” to fulfill security commitments it made to Turkey nearly a year ago at a NATO summit in Madrid.
“We decided to start the approval process of Finland’s NATO accession protocol in our parliament, based on the sensitivity and distance achieved by our country in addressing our security concerns,” Mr. Erdogan said, adding that talks with Sweden would “continue on the basis of the principles of our alliance and our approach to the fight against terrorism.”
“At this point, how the process will progress will be directly tied to the concrete steps that Sweden will take,” he said, citing what he said was Sweden’s refusal to extradite “terrorists” affiliated with the militant Kurdistan Workers’ Party, or PKK.
In recent months, Turkey has expressed anger at street protests held in Stockholm against Mr. Erdogan, including a demonstration in January that included the burning of a Quran. For Mr. Erdogan, splitting Finland from Sweden also appears to be a domestic political play — an appeal to nationalist voters as he lags behind his main opponent in some polls ahead of a planned May 14 election.
For NATO, Mr. Erdogan’s antics are something between an ill-timed irritant and a dangerous distraction. NATO insists that both countries will join eventually, making the alliance stronger.
But until they do, officials will continue to spend time and energy shuttling between capitals to cut a deal — while Russia wages war.
This week, Sweden’s prime minister, Ulf Kristersson, seemed to concede that Finland would go first. “It is not excluded that Sweden and Finland will ratify in different steps,” he said.