“It’s a good day for Sweden and Finland, and a good day for NATO,” said NATO Secretary General, Jens Stoltenberg at the beginning of the ceremony. In his opinion, “with 32 nations around the table, we will be even stronger, and our people will be even safer, as we face the biggest security crisis in decades.”
The accession ceremony for Sweden and Finland was used by NATO to launch a call to all “European democracies that are ready and willing to contribute to our collective security.”
For his part, the Finnish Foreign Minister, Pekka Haavistothanked the “support of the alliance to the membership, and we look forward to a quick ratification process”, while the Swedish chancellor, Ann Lindeconsidered that “the signing of the accession protocols is an important step”.
Sweden and Finland before the Turkish blockade
The accession process of Sweden and Finland to NATO initially crashed against the veto of Turkeyand although the Turkish government agreed to allow the signing of the protocols, it reserved the right to block accession.
During the NATO summit a week ago in Madrid, Turkey presented a series of demands to allow the accession of the Swedes and Finns, and made it clear that this will only happen if the two countries fulfill the negotiated commitments.
Turkey was vetoing Sweden’s accession because that country granted safe haven to people the Turkish government considers “terrorists“, and to circumvent the veto Sweden promised to extradite 73 of those Turkish citizens to Turkey.
Turkey has been asking for several years in Stockholm for the extradition of kurdish activists and people close to the movement founded by the preacher Fethullah Gülenaccused by the Turkish authorities of fomenting the July 2016 coup attempt.
Source: Ambito
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