Finland to join NATO in the coming days - Stoltenberg
Turkey has given its consent for the Nordic country to join the military alliance
NATO Secretary General Jens Stoltenberg said that Finland will officially join NATO "in the coming days".
On Thursday, March 30, the Turkish parliament ratified Finland's application for NATO membership, which was the last obstacle on the Scandinavian country's path to the Western military alliance.
"All 30 NATO members have ratified the accession protocol," Stoltenberg said on Friday.
"Finland will officially join our alliance in the coming days," he added.
In a tweet published after Turkey's vote on Thursday, Stoltenberg said that Finland's inclusion in the alliance "will make the entire NATO family stronger and safer."
Earlier it became known that the Hungarian parliament ratified Finland's application to join NATO on Monday, March 27. Budapest has been postponing the vote in parliament on Finland for several months, citing "Helsinki's traditional support for the EU's hard line on Prime Minister Viktor Orban."
On June 29, 2022, NATO countries decided to officially invite Finland and Sweden, which had previously renounced their neutrality and decided to join NATO for security reasons after Russia's full-scale invasion of Ukraine, to become members of the Alliance.
Turkey, along with Hungary, continue to postpone the ratification of Sweden's accession to NATO, which applied for membership along with Finland.
In an interview with Politico, Jens Stoltenberg said he hopes to finalize the process with Sweden by the time of the alliance's summit in July.
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