Turkish President Recep Tayyip Erdogan (right) and Finnish President Sauli Niinisto (left) hold a joint press conference after their meeting on the presidential complex in Ankara, March 17, 2023.
Adem Altan | afp | Getty’s paintings
Turkey’s parliament unanimously voted Thursday to formally approve Finland’s membership of NATO, a historic step for the traditionally non-aligned Nordic country that shares an 830-mile border with Russia.
The vote is a continuation of a months-long saga in which Turkey demanded some concessions from Finland and neighboring Sweden, which applied for NATO membership in May 2022 after Russia invaded Ukraine. Joining NATO requires the unanimous consent of all member states. The vote in Ankara, which took place late in the evening, meant that Finland had overcome the last hurdle in the accession process.
Turkey and Hungary remained the last obstacles standing in the way in which of the Nordic countries to the 74-year-old alliance. Ankara has yet to approve Sweden’s application for membership, while Hungary – whose Prime Minister Viktor Orban is friends with Russian leader Vladimir Putin – has approved Finland’s accession but not Sweden’s.
Turkey joined NATO in 1952 and has the second largest army in the alliance after the USA.
As of 2022, NATO has expanded to confess three former Soviet states and all former Warsaw Pact countries.
Bryn Bache | CNBC
Turkey’s animosity towards Sweden is especially focused on Sweden’s support for Kurdish groups that Ankara considers to be terrorists or militant-linked, and the arms embargoes that Sweden and Finland, together with other EU countries, imposed on Turkey for attacks on Kurdish militias in Syria.
Finland lifted a nearly three-year-old arms embargo on Turkey in January as a part of an effort to enhance relations between the 2 countries. But relations between Stockholm and Ankara remain in limbo.
“Turkey each confirms that we have now done what we promised we might do, but additionally says that it wants things that we cannot or don’t need to provide them,” Swedish Prime Minister Ulf Kristersson said in early January. Nevertheless, he expressed confidence that Turkey would approve his country’s candidacy for NATO membership.
![Former Prime Minister of Finland: Russia does not see Finland's and Sweden's accession to NATO as a military threat](https://image.cnbcfm.com/api/v1/image/107062920-16528496911652849689-23220179098-1080pnbcnews.jpg?v=1652849691&w=750&h=422&vtcrop=y)
Sweden and Finland have maintained a non-aligned stance for greater than seven many years since NATO’s founding, fearing to impress Moscow, which has often described the alliance as an existential threat. But these countries have been official NATO partners since 1994, collaborating in NATO missions and exercises.
Russian President Vladimir Putin and Kremlin officials warned of “consequences” if the 2 Nordic countries join the alliance, though they didn’t specify what those is perhaps.
Originally of 2022, Putin cited Ukraine’s desire to hitch NATO as a reason for his decision to invade that country, considering the organization’s expansion along Russia’s borders unacceptable.
Sarcastically, it was his invasion of Ukraine that prompted Finland and Sweden to use to hitch the alliance, with the previous’s impending membership expected so as to add a latest 830 miles of NATO territory along the Russian border.
In keeping with local polls, months before Russia’s full-scale invasion of Ukraine in October 2021, Finnish support for joining the alliance was 24%. By November 2022, it had increased to 78%.