Turkish parliament ratifies Finland’s NATO membership

World
By William

Finland asked to join the defense alliance in response to the Russian invasion of Ukraine and Turkey was the latest raider.

The Turkish parliament has approved a bill to allow Finland to join NATO, removing the last major hurdle for Helsinki to join the defense alliance as war rages in Ukraine.

All 276 lawmakers present voted in favor of Finland’s bid on Thursday, days after Hungary’s parliament also approved Helsinki’s entry.

The Turkish parliament was the last of the alliance’s 30 members to ratify Finland’s membership.

Turkish President Recep Tayyip Erdogan said earlier this month that Finland had secured his country’s blessing after taking concrete steps to crack down on groups deemed “terrorists” by Ankara and to liberalize defense exports.

After the vote, Finnish President Sauli Niinisto thanked the 30 NATO member states for supporting his country’s bid to join the alliance.

“I want to thank everyone for the trust and support. Finland will be a strong and capable ally, committed to the security of the alliance,” he said in a statement on Twitter.

NATO chief Jens Stoltenberg also welcomed the move.

“I welcome the vote… to complete the ratification of Finland’s accession. This will make the entire NATO family stronger and more secure,” Stoltenberg wrote on Twitter.

Finland and Sweden had asked to join the transatlantic military alliance last year in response to Russia’s invasion of Ukraine, which began on February 24, 2022. The move ended decades of military non-alliance by the two countries.

Finland shares a 1,300 km (800 mi) border with Russia.

Sweden’s bid to join the alliance, meanwhile, has been left in limbo, with both Turkey and Hungary withholding approval despite their support for NATO expansion.

The Turkish government has accused Sweden of being too lenient towards Kurdish groups it considers “terrorists”, as well as people implicated in a 2016 coup attempt.

Ankara has also expressed anger at a series of demonstrations in Sweden, including a protest by activists who burned the Koran outside the Turkish embassy.

For its part, the Hungarian government has argued that some Swedish politicians have made derisive statements about the state of Hungarian democracy and played an active role in ensuring that billions of European Union funds were frozen for alleged violations of the rule of law and the democration.

On Thursday, Turkish officials said Finland, unlike Sweden, was honoring its commitments under a memorandum signed last year, in which the two countries pledged to address Turkey’s security concerns.

“As a NATO member, we naturally had some expectations and requests regarding our country’s security problems,” Akif Cagatay Kilic, a lawmaker from Erdogan’s ruling party, said before the vote to parliament.

“I would like to underline the concrete steps and their implementation by Finland, which have supported and shaped the decision we are making here.”

“I am aware that there are a large number of people watching us from Finland,” Kilic added. “We can say to them: ‘Welcome to NATO.’”

Some opposition parties were critical of the Turkish government’s position towards the two Nordic countries.

“Unfortunately, [Erdogan’s ruling party] turned the right to veto Finland’s and Sweden’s accession bids into a tool for blackmail and threats. We do not approve,” said Hisyar Ozsoy, a legislator from the pro-Kurdish party.

“We like the negotiation process [to press for] the extradition of Kurdish dissident writers, politicians and journalists… to be ugly, wrong and illegitimate.”

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