Finland and Sweden are on track to join the North Atlantic Treaty Organization in the near future despite friction with Turkey, U.S. and Nordic officials said, The Wall Street Journal reports.
The Northern European nations’ foreign ministers met in Washington Thursday with Secretary of State Antony Blinken, and all three voiced optimism that Turkey and Hungary, the final two NATO members that haven’t ratified the new members, would do so soon.
“We are on the right track,” Swedish Foreign Minister Tobias Billström said in an interview. “We are not there yet, but we are definitely on the right track.”
Since NATO’s founding the two Nordic nations had maintained military neutrality between Moscow and the alliance, but Russia’s full-scale invasion of Ukraine this year prompted them to seek membership, which includes the protective umbrella of NATO’s mutual-defense pact.
Their membership would be a strategic victory for the Western allies and a setback for Russia, which will have to confront a unified Western alliance that extends to its border with Finland, the Arctic and the Baltic Sea.
Finland and Sweden already participate in many NATO meetings. Mr. Billström and Finnish Foreign Minister Pekka Haavisto joined Mr. Blinken and other foreign ministers in Bucharest, Romania, last week. Still, the two nations aren’t a part of key military planning and don’t enjoy the protection of the NATO charter’s Article 5, which states that “an armed attack against one or more…shall be considered an attack against them all.”
Hungary has signaled it could approve Finland’s and Sweden’s bids in early 2023. Turkey is under increasing pressure from Western countries to ratify their bids. The alliance’s secretary-general, Jens Stoltenberg, said during a visit to Turkey in November that the two Nordic countries delivered on their promises under a June agreement and that “it is time” to welcome the two into the organization.
“We hope that this will be the timetable that multiple countries could come as members of NATO,” Mr. Haavisto said at a press conference with Messrs. Billström and Blinken.
Mr. Blinken said, “I am convinced based on everything I know that we will soon be able to call both countries our allies.” The U.S. ratified the countries’ bid in August, with only one lawmaker—Republican Sen. Josh Hawley of Missouri—voting against.
When asked what the U.S., the largest and most powerful economy in the alliance, is doing to persuade Turkey to admit the countries, Mr. Blinken said the outstanding issues are between Turkey and the NATO aspirants, not Washington.
“This is not a bilateral issue between the United States and Turkey, and it’s not going to turn into one,” Mr. Blinken said. “They have a memorandum of understanding, very tangible steps have been taken to implement it, and we will let them continue that process with Turkey.”
Mr. Billström said he is planning a trip to Ankara soon and that Sweden had made progress in fulfilling the three-way Swedish-Finish-Turkey memorandum.
Turkey has said that it wants the two countries to take more concrete steps to cut ties with Kurdish militant groups before approving the nations’ entry into NATO. Turkish President Recep Tayyip Erdogan threatened in May to veto the Nordic nations’ NATO bids, citing their relations with Kurdish militants including members of the Kurdistan Workers’ Party (PKK) and its Syrian branch. The PKK is considered a terrorist group by both Turkey and Western countries, but its Syrian offshoot is a U.S. and Western partner in the battle against Islamic State.
