The Finnish president said in an interview published on Saturday that he is confident that Finland and Sweden will be admitted to NATO by July. He hinted, however, that he wants the United States to pressure Turkey to approve their membership, quickly and smoothly.
If the issue drags on, the whole process of admitting new members into the military alliance will become questionable, President Sauli Niinistö said in an interview with Finnish news agency STT.
“If it doesn’t happen during the Vilnius meeting, why should it happen afterwards?”
The capital of Lithuania will host the NATO summit on July 11-12.
The North Atlantic Treaty Organization (NATO) requires the unanimous approval of its current members to admit new ones. Turkey and Hungary are the only countries in the 30-nation military alliance that have not officially endorsed Sweden and Finland’s membership.
Although Hungary pledged to do so in February, Turkey has not shown any willingness to ratify the two countries’ membership any time soon. Mr. Niinistö stressed that the final Turkish decision rests with Turkish President Recep Tayyip Erdogan.
“I don’t think he will allow himself to be swayed by any public pressure in any way,” Niinistö said. However, if something unblocks during the bilateral talks between Turkey and the United States, it could have an impact,” he said.
Turkey has refused to approve Sweden and Finland’s NATO membership, as it is infuriated, among other things, by a recent series of protests in Stockholm by militants who burned the Koran outside the embassy of Turkey and hung an effigy of Erdogan.
In January, Ankara indefinitely postponed a key meeting in Brussels where the entry of the two Nordic countries into NATO would have been discussed.
Mr Niinistö argues that Finland and Sweden had heard many encouraging statements from NATO last spring – the Nordic duo declared their intention to join NATO in May.
source: lesoleil
