HELSINKI Jun 28 Turkey will support the invitation of Finland and Sweden to join the North Atlantic Alliance, the Office of the Finnish President said.
Finnish President Sauli Niiniste held talks in Madrid on Tuesday with Turkish counterpart Recep Tayyip Erdogan and Swedish Prime Minister Magdalena Andersson assistance of NATO Secretary General Jens Stoltenberg. «As a result of this meeting, the foreign ministers of our countries signed a tripartite memorandum, which confirms that Turkey at the summit in Madrid will support the invitation of Finland and Sweden to become NATO members,» Niiniste's office said.
br>It will be specified that the NATO allies will agree on specific steps for the entry of the two new countries over the next two days.
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The agency noted that, as a member of the alliance, Finland intends to adhere to the bloc's documents and policies on combating terrorism, but at the same time, Helsinki will continue to act in accordance with national legislation. «Our regulatory behavior will remain the same, but in general the fight against terrorism will become more effective,» the Finnish leader said.Pushkov warned of the possibility of the emergence of NATO nuclear weapons in FinlandIn turn, Erdogan's office said that Finland and Sweden pledged not to support the Kurdistan Workers' Party (PKK) banned in Turkey and the organization of the Islamic preacher Fethullah Gülen (FETÖ), as well as to get away from the embargo policy against the Turkish defense industry. Ankara also stressed that Helsinki and Stockholm have committed themselves to amending national legislation in the field of combating terrorism and the defense industry. />The Federation Council commented on the entry of Finland and Sweden into NATOAccording to Stoltenberg, the security agreement signed by Finland, Sweden and Turkey will unblock the process of joining the two new countries to the alliance. According to him, this will be the fastest process in history for joining a military bloc. «Tomorrow, the leaders of the countries will decide to invite Sweden and Finland to join NATO … Then the process of ratifying this decision in each of the capitals will begin,» he explained. Sweden and Finland started talking about the possibility of joining the North Atlantic Alliance against the backdrop of a Russian special operation in Ukraine and submitted an application for entry on May 18. Ankara, in turn, blocked the process of considering it. The President of the Republic, Recep Tayyip Erdogan, stated that he had vetoed it because of the position of Stockholm and Helsinki in relation to the Kurdistan Workers' Party (PKK) banned in Turkey. Moscow has repeatedly drawn attention to the fact that NATO is aimed at confrontation. As the press secretary of the President Dmitry Peskov stated, further expansion of the military bloc will not bring greater security to Europe. At the same time, he emphasized that he did not consider the entry of two new countries into the alliance an existential threat to Russia.