Turkish President Erdogan (right) and Finnish President Niinisto (left) meeting in Ankara on March 17, 2023. Photo: Turkish Presidency
ERBIL, Kurdistan Region - Turkey will start the necessary protocols to ratify Finland’s accession into NATO, President Recep Tayyip Erdogan announced on Friday during a joint press conference with his Finnish counterpart Sauli Niinisto in Ankara.
Erdogan said Helsinki took “sincere and concrete steps” towards fulfilling promises made in a tripartite memorandum signed between Turkey, Finland, and Sweden during NATO’s summit in Madrid in June 2022.
“Based on the sensitivity shown towards eradicating our security concerns, we have decided to start the approval process for Finland’s NATO accession protocol in our parliament,” the Turkish president said.
Niinisto, who arrived in Turkey on Thursday, welcomed Erdogan’s the announcement, tweeting, “I look forward to further deepening the cooperation of our countries as allies.”
Sweden and Finland made a joint bid to join NATO a year ago after Russia invaded Ukraine. However, Ankara raised objections, accusing the Nordic countries of supporting groups Turkey labels as terrorists, including the Kurdistan Workers’ Party (PKK).
Ankara, Stockholm and Helsinki signed a memorandum in June 2022 to address Turkey’s concerns, including extraditing alleged PKK members. Sweden deported a Kurdish refugee to Turkey in December for suspected links to the PKK.
While Turkey has now signalled it will approve Finland’s bid, Sweden is still waiting for a green light and Erdogan said he expects more from Stockholm. “The progress in the process will be directly related to the concrete steps that Sweden will take”, he said, adding that he believes his country’s stance is clear to all.
Erdogan said he has asked Stockholm to extradite 120 individuals to Turkey, which Sweden has failed to do, and it is therefore impossible “to approach Sweden positively.”
In January, Swedish Prime Minister Ulf Kristersson said his government has done what it said it would do, but that Turkey is asking for things Sweden “cannot” do. Erdogan responded at the time that Turkey would consider Finland’s accession, not Sweden’s.
For a country to join the NATO military alliance, all active member countries must accept their bid.
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