Türkiye to Ratify Finland's NATO Bid, Erdogan Says

On Wednesday, President Recep Tayyip Erdogan said that Türkiye will "honor its pledge" on Finland's NATO bid after his scheduled meeting with the Finnish president later this week.

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"We will run the necessary procedures. We will do our part and keep our promise. We will meet Mr. President and fulfill the promise we made," Erdogan told reporters at the parliament

Erdogan and Finnish President Sauli Niinisto are scheduled to meet on Friday in Türkiye, where they will discuss bilateral relations, Finland's NATO membership application, Türkiye-EU relations, as well as other regional and global issues.

Finland's NATO accession bid has to get the Turkish parliament's approval. The latter will go into recess before mid-April, in the run-up to the country's presidential and parliamentary elections slated for May 14.

Ankara previously said it would send Finland's bid for parliamentary sessions before doing the same for Sweden, because the latter has to take additional measures to address Türkiye's concerns about terrorism.

Finland and Sweden applied to join NATO in May 2022 in the wake of the Russia-Ukraine conflict. Their accession to NATO needs the approval of all member states of the military alliance.

Türkiye, a NATO member, held back its approval and accused the two Nordic countries of supporting anti-Turkish Kurdish organizations and political dissidents. Türkiye also asked the two countries to extradite individuals it considers to be terrorist suspects.

In June 2022, Türkiye, Sweden and Finland reached a memorandum of understanding ahead of the NATO summit in Madrid, in which Türkiye greenlighted the applications of both countries to join NATO.