“We have decided to start the protocol of Finland’s accession to NATO in our parliament,” Erdoğan said following talks with his visiting Finnish counterpart Sauli Niinistö.
The aim is to ratify Finland’s membership before the Turkish election on May 14th.
When Erdoğan was asked at a press conference why the parliament was not also being asked to vote on Swedish membership, he said that Sweden harboured terrorists wanted in Turkey.
“Sweden has opened its arms for terrorists, which is not the case with Finland,” he said, adding that discussions between Sweden and Turkey would continue.
“We have given the very nice Swedish prime minister a list of 120 terrorists, but they have not extradited them,” he added. “And so long as they have not done that, we will not have a positive attitude towards Sweden.”
At the press conference, Niinistö said that the decision to ratify Finland’s membership was “very good news”, but he said that Finland would be exposed until Sweden also joined the defence alliance.
“We also have Sweden and my feeling is that Finnish Nato membership is not complete without Sweden,” he said. “We are neighbours and have a lot in common. I want to see that in Vilnius we can meet as an alliance consisting of 32 members.”
Turkey and Hungary are the only two Nato countries which have not yet ratified Finland and Sweden’s Nato memberships.
Hungary’s ruling party Fidesz on Friday said that the country’s parliament planned to hold its delayed vote on Finland and Sweden’s Nato membership on March 31st.
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