Finnish Minister of Foreign Affairs Pekka Haavisto expects that now, with the completion of the accession ratification process, Finland will officially become a member of the North Atlantic Alliance in about two weeks.
Pekka Haavisto noted that he received information about the approval by the President of Turkey of the parliament’s decision to ratify the protocol and does not expect any further obstacles.
According to him, Turkey is likely to quickly send the document to Washington, where documents on the accession of all allies are kept.
After NATO Secretary General Jens Stoltenberg receives information from the US that the papers have arrived, he will invite Finland to join the membership.
This could happen practically any day. If we try to guess, it could be, for example, Monday or Tuesday,” Haavisto noted.
After the invitation from the Secretary-General, the representative of Finland will personally go to the US State Department with the documents for admission. Once they are delivered, the admission process will be finally completed.
Pekka Haavisto says that if Turkey submits their papers as expected, the entire procedure could be completed either this week or next week.
Let’s remind that on April 1st, it became known that the President of Turkey approved the parliament’s decision to ratify the Finnish accession protocol.
At the same time, the prospects for Sweden’s accession approval, which is still awaiting Hungary’s and Turkey’s consent, have become even more uncertain. In Stockholm, they are no longer confident that they will be able to complete the accession process before the NATO summit in Vilnius, although such a chance remains.