Monitoring Desk
ISLAMABAD/WASHINGTON: The United States on Thursday said it’s time for Turkiye to ratify Sweden and Finland’s applications to join the North Atlantic Treaty Organisation (NATO), bluntly saying that holdout members of the NATO should quickly approve membership of these two countries.
The US State Department said Secretary of State Antony Blinken had affirmed support for Sweden and Finland in the phone calls with foreign ministers of these countries and said the United States places valuable importance on “remaining allies quickly ratifying their accession.” The statement from Biden administration said came just a day after Blinken met with the Turkish foreign minister whose country is the most ardent NATO holdout against Sweden and Finland joining the alliance.
In almost identical statements about the two calls released just 13 minutes apart, Ned Price, the State Department spokesman said that Blinken had “reiterated US support for Sweden and Finland NATO accession.”
“He conveyed again our firm belief that Finland and Sweden are ready to join the alliance,” Price said of the calls with Finnish Foreign Minister Pekka Haavisto and Swedish Foreign Minister Tobias Billstrom.
Sweden, Finland applied for NATO membership in 2022
The two nations applied for NATO membership in 2022 after becoming concerned by the invasion of Ukraine by Russia. Only two of the NATO alliance’s 30 members — Turkiye and Hungary — are yet to ratify their membership. Hungary’s ratification is seen just as a formality and expected soon while Turkiye has raised serious objections to the Nordic countries joining the NATO alliance, citing their support for the Kurdish groups that Ankara sees as terrorist threats.
