The 30 ambassadors of the NATO countries signed the accession protocols of Finland and Sweden on Tuesday in Brusselsa key step for their membership in the Alliance, although they will not be full members until the entry process is complete.
The signing took place in the presence of the Foreign Ministers of Finland, Pekka Haavisto, and Sweden, Ann Linde, NATO reported in a statement.
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Before signing the protocols, NATO Secretary General Jens Stoltenberg assured that with the future entry of Finland and Sweden into the Alliance “we will be even stronger and our population will be even safer when we face the biggest security crisis in decades“, referring to the war in Ukraine.
He stressed that this Tuesday is “really a historic moment for Finland, for Sweden and for NATO, and for our shared security.”
The politician also acknowledged the “security concerns” that Turkey raised and that “needed to be addressed”, which was done over weeks of negotiations. “We did what we always do in NATO. We found common ground,” he said.
NATO’s door remains open for European democracies that are ready and willing to contribute to our shared security.
The war in Ukraine has led Finland and Sweden, countries with a neutral tradition, to request entry into NATO, a process that has turned out to be more complex than expected after Turkey blocked the access of the two States, considering them lax in the treatment of organizations that Ankara describes as terrorists.
Nevertheless, Ankara, Stockholm and Helsinki reached a pact last Tuesday by which Turkey lifted its vetowhich cleared the way for the two Nordic states to become members of the transatlantic organization.
Indeed, after the trilateral agreement reached between Ankara, Stockholm and Helsinki in Madrid, the allied leaders, at last week’s summit, agreed to invite Finland and Sweden to join NATO.
Yesterday, the two Nordic countries completed the accession negotiations at the Alliance headquarters in Brussels, and today the signing of the entry protocols of both States by the ambassadors of the thirty current NATO members takes place.
After the signing of the accession protocols, they must be ratified at the national level in the thirty countries of the transatlantic organization.
NATO’s collective defense principle, according to which an attack against one ally is equivalent to an attack against all of them and a joint response must be given, will only apply to Finland and Sweden once they have become full members of the Alliance, a once the entire accession process has been completed.
last turkish pressure
Turkey alleges that Sweden offers a safe haven to people the Turkish government considers “terrorists” and also the two countries adopt sanctions against Ankara for its military participation in Syria.
Within the framework of the summit that NATO held at the end of June in Madrid, Turkey agreed to allow the signing of the protocols but presented a list of demands to the two candidates to lift the veto definitively.
A memorandum of understanding has been signed between Sweden, Finland and Turkey.
After the signing of the protocols this Tuesday, the accession must be ratified in the parliaments of each of the 30 countries of the alliance, unanimously.
The Turkish president, Recep Teyyip Erdogan, announced that if Sweden and Finland do not comply with what was agreed in Madrid, his government will make the veto effective, which would derail the entire process.
According to Erdogan, Sweden has promised to extradite to Turkey Turkish citizens considered “terrorists” by the Ankara government. There could be a total of 73 people.
“And we are going to honor that understanding,” said Chancellor Linde, who added that eventual extraditions must follow the legal path of her country.
Moments after this ceremony, the Prime Minister of Estonia, Kaja Kallas, announced on Twitter that she called on the Parliament of her country to vote on the ratification of accession this Wednesday.
INTERNATIONAL WRITING
*With information from EFE and AFP
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