Foreign
Turkey’s parliament is scheduled to vote on Finland’s accession into the NATO military alliance on Thursday.
The house, dominated by President Recep Tayyip Erdoğan’s party and allied nationalists, is expected
to give its approval, making Turkey the final NATO member to ratify Finland’s accession.
For a new country to join NATO, each of the alliance’s existing members needs to give its formal approval.
The general assembly session will start at 2p.m (1100 GMT), according to the legislative house’s website.
Another Nordic NATO hopeful Sweden’s bid is still on hold due to Turkish demands, including the
repatriation of several suspects whom Ankara labels as “terrorists.’’
Finland and Sweden applied for NATO membership in May 2022 in the wake of Russia’s full-scale invasion
of Ukraine. Finland shares a long land border with Russia.
Turkey has been blocking their accession, citing what it sees as insufficient commitment to fight
terrorism, primarily in reference to Sweden and the outlawed Kurdistan Workers’ Party (PKK).
It is now expected that Finland will join NATO before Sweden.(dpa/NAN)
A.
Tags:
