Turkey’s growing pressure on Sweden, following a series of protests in Stockholm where everything from effigies of President Recep Tayyip Erdogan to copies of the Koran have been burned, has opened a crack in the hitherto unappealable alliance with Finland to advance the two Nordic countries’ accession to NATO. The goal is still to join together, but the Finnish government has already let it be known that this does not have to be the case.
Finnish Foreign Minister Pekka Haavisto acknowledged for the first time Tuesday that the two countries should rethink the strategy of moving forward together if necessary. «We have to be prepared to reassess the situation,» he told Finnish public broadcaster Yle.
He also stressed that «it is too early» to determine whether «something has happened that would prevent Sweden’s application in the long term,» while stressing that «from the security perspective of both countries, (NATO membership) is clearly the first option.»
In subsequent statements to the media, the head of Finnish diplomacy tried to qualify his words by insisting that Stockholm and Helsinki are still «trying to move forward together» and confirmed contacts with both his Swedish counterpart, Tobias Billström, and the Secretary General of the Atlantic Alliance, Jens Stoltenberg.
Not surprisingly, Billström has recognized after Haavisto’s first words that he would ask the Finnish authorities for clarifications, according to the SVT channel. «Sweden respects the agreement between Sweden, Finland and Turkey regarding our integration into NATO,» he insisted, referring to the agreement signed in the margins of the Madrid leaders’ summit.
Sweden maintains that it has fulfilled all the commitments made in that pact, which mainly called for greater efforts to pursue Kurdish groups that Turkey considers terrorists, but Erdogan warned on Tuesday that, as things stand, the Swedish government cannot «wait» for the final endorsement of Swedish membership.
NATO ADVOCATES JOINT ASPIRATIONS Finnish Defense Minister Mikko Savola has advocated on Twitter to «keep a cool head», also recalling that the two neighboring countries submitted «at the same time» their request to join the Atlantic Alliance in May 2022.
Sweden and Finland depend on the approval of the 30 member states of the Atlantic Alliance to join, a ratification that has advanced in record time but remains to be processed in Turkey and Hungary. Technically, they are separate processes, so the Turkish Parliament could give Finland the green light without backing its partner.
Apart from the interests of the Swedes and Finns, the goal of simultaneous integration remains the keynote in NATO as well. «Finland and Sweden applied to join NATO at the same time. The 30 allies invited both countries to join last June, and 28 have already ratified their accession protocols,» Stoltenberg said Tuesday, in statements reported by Europa Press.
In this sense, the former Norwegian Prime Minister stressed that this is the fastest accession process in the recent history of NATO and stressed that the entry of both is a «priority» for the Atlantic Alliance. Both participate in NATO meetings, sit at the allies’ table and are integrated in the consultation groups and military activities, he insisted.
«I look forward to their full membership in NATO, which is in everyone’s interest,» Stoltenberg concluded, in remarks that come after Finland for the first time opened the door to considering membership without Sweden, due to Turkey’s continued reluctance.
Source: (EUROPA PRESS)
