Finland’s Foreign Minister Pekka Haavisto on Monday presented a bill on the country’s entry into NATO, although he stressed that the Turkish government, which has imposed a number of conditions for withdrawing its veto on Finnish and Swedish membership of the Atlantic Alliance, has so far not offered a timetable in this regard.
At a press conference, Haavisto indicated that with this law the Parliament «will be able to begin to deal with the decision to join NATO despite the fact that ratification by all the members is necessary, of which only Turkey and Hungary are missing».
He informed the Turkish and Hungarian sides of the presentation of this legislation and stressed that the future of this measure «will not depend on the fate of the government», according to information from the daily ‘Ilta-Sanomat’.
However, he indicated that he believes that «the government must remain united» and recalled that «a functional government is necessary in times of crisis, which includes the negotiations with Turkey».
«We have not received any timetable from the Turkish side. We have addressed security issues in the Baltic Sea and (…) that is why we are trying to accelerate the entry process», he pointed out before indicating that Turkey’s «concerns are related to terrorism».
In this sense, he affirmed that the authorities «are hopeful that the Turkish Parliament will make room to be able to discuss the matter as soon as possible».
