Turkey and Hungary will approve Finlandʼs accession to NATO. Discussions with Sweden will continue

Turkey agreed to approve Finlandʼs accession to NATO. The Parliament of Hungary will also vote for it. These are the only two countries that have not yet ratified the accession of Sweden and Finland to the Alliance.

This was stated by the President of Turkey Recep Tayyip Erdogan and the head of the Fidesz faction of Hungary Mate Kocsis.

Erdogan said that Finland has taken all the concrete steps necessary to obtain membership, and the approval of its accession to NATO can be put to a vote of the parliament.

But discussions with Sweden will continue. Turkey believes that it has not yet fulfilled all the requirements for the Turks to agree to its joining the Alliance.

The situation is similar in Hungary. They said that on March 27, the parliament would consider and approve Finlandʼs accession to NATO. A decision on Sweden will be made later.

• In May 2022, Sweden and Finland renounced their traditional neutrality against the backdrop of Russiaʼs military invasion of Ukraine and submitted applications to join NATO. So far, among all the members of the Alliance, only Hungary and Turkey have not accepted their applications. The Prime Minister of Hungary Viktor Orban promised a positive decision of the parliament on this issue "soon". At the same time, Turkey is blocking the entry, arguing that Stockholm and Helsinki have not fulfilled their obligations regarding the extradition of alleged Kurdish extremists.