The Parliament of Turkey will begin the ratification of Finland’s membership in NATO

The Turkish parliament will soon start ratifying Finland’s accession to NATO. Turkish President Recep Erdogan announced this on Friday at a meeting with his Finnish counterpart Saule Ninnistö in Ankara. As for Sweden’s accession to NATO, the Turkish authorities are not yet ready to approve it. Negotiations are ongoing with the Swedish government.

The day before that, on Thursday, Hungarian Prime Minister Viktor Orbán announced that the Hungarian parliament would vote on the issue of Finland and Sweden joining NATO on March 20.

After the start of Russia’s military invasion of Ukraine, previously neutral Finland and Turkey applied to join the NATO bloc. In order to approve the application, it is necessary to ratify it by all member countries of the alliance. The only ones out of 30 NATO countries that have not yet approved the agreement are Turkey and Hungary.

In February, Turkey supported Finland’s request, but demanded that the Swedish authorities take a tougher position towards the Kurdistan Workers’ Party (PKK). Turkey also demands from Sweden the extradition of more than 100 Kurdish activists who received political asylum in the country. Ankara accuses them of terrorism.

In the Hungarian Parliament, the deadlines for voting on ratification have been postponed several times. The head of Viktor Orbán’s office stated that Hungary must first adopt anti-corruption legislation, and only then can it deal with NATO issues.

The Hungarian opposition accused Orban’s ruling party of delaying the vote. Orban strives to preserve ties with Moscow, despite the Russian military invasion of Ukraine.