Finland hopes to join NATO with Sweden

Finland still hopes to join NATO along with Sweden, his head of diplomacy said on Monday after Turkish President Erdogan mentioned the hypothesis of supporting only Helsinki.

“Our great desire was and still is to join Sweden”, Foreign Minister Pekka Haavisto said at a press conference, and assured that the Finnish position remains “unchanged”.

Turkish President Recep Tayyip Erdogan first suggested on Sunday that Turkey could approve Finland’s candidacy to join NATO, without doing the same for Sweden.

“If necessary, we can give a different message regarding Finland. Sweden will be upset when we give a different message about Finland”, stated the Turkish head of state.

These statementsThey “show that there is a willingness on the part of Turkey to move quickly on the NATO (accession) process if necessary,” Haavisto stressed. The minister said that he had contacts since then with his Swedish and Turkish counterparts and expressed the hope that the Turkish ratification would not be split in two.

“We have expressed our position that (the candidacies of) Finland and Sweden be ratified together,” the Finnish minister said.

Turkey halted the accession of Sweden and Finland to NATO on Tuesdayby postponing sine die a tripartite meeting initially scheduled for the beginning of February and intended to lift the objections of the Turkish government to his candidacy.

The Turkish president had warned the day before that Sweden, accused by Turkey of harboring Kurdish “terrorists”, could no longer count on Ankara’s “support”, after a far-right militant burned a copy of the Koran in Stockholm. (YO)