ANKARA (Reuters) – Turkish President Recep Tayyip Erdogan announced on Friday that Turkey would begin the process of ratifying Finland’s NATO membership, saying the country has taken concrete steps to meet its commitments to NATO. ‘Ankara.
Turkey, which is a member of the Atlantic Alliance, will continue its discussions with the other Nordic candidate country, Sweden, on questions relating to terrorism, Tayyip Erdogan added during a press conference alongside his counterpart. Finnish Sauli Niinisto.
Turkey’s green light for Sweden’s membership will directly depend on the measures taken by Stockholm on this file, he warned. The Turkish president again criticized Sweden for not having taken concrete action concerning a list of 120 “terrorists” whose extradition Ankara is demanding.
Regarding Finland, Tayyip Erdogan said he was hopeful that the Turkish Parliament would ratify membership before the next elections on May 14.
In Hungary, the leader of Fidesz, the ruling party, said that Parliament would vote on March 27 on the ratification of Finland’s membership, and that the majority bloc would support this membership unanimously. Mate Kocsis added that a decision on Sweden would be taken later.
Hungary’s ratification procedure has been stalled since last July. In February, President Viktor Orban accused Finland and Sweden of spreading “lies” about democracy and the rule of law in Hungary. Fidesz elected officials visited the two Nordic countries at the beginning of the month.
France welcomed an “important signal” which it called for “translating into action as soon as possible”, the Ministry of Foreign Affairs said in a press release.
“While war has returned to European soil, the strengthening of the Atlantic Alliance is in the interest of all its members. France therefore expects Turkey and Hungary to proceed without further delay to the ratification of Sweden’s accession protocol,” added the Quai d’Orsay.
Sweden and Finland asked to join NATO last year after Russia invaded Ukraine.
(Report Ece Toksabaty, Ceyda Caglayan, Krisztina Than in Budapest, French version Jean-Stéphane Brosse and Camille Raynaud, edited by Blandine Hénault)
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