Turkey Drops Opposition to Sweden & Finland Joining NATO

Turkey has dropped its opposition to Finnish and Swedish membership of NATO, paving the way for the Alliance to grow to comprise 32 member states in the future. Under the auspices of NATO Secretary General Jens Stoltenberg, the Turkish President Recep Tayyip Erdoğan, President Sauli Niinistö of Finland and Prime Minister Magdalena Andersson of Sweden agreed on a memorandum at the NATO summit in Madrid on 28 June addressing Turkey’s legitimate security concerns and confirming Turkey’s support for the membership bids by Helsinki and Stockholm.

The memorandum was signed by the foreign ministers of the three countries – Mevlüt Çavuşoğlu of Türkiye, Pekka Haavisto of Finland, and Ann Linde of Sweden – in the presence of all three national leaders, and the Secretary General. Russia’s invasion of Ukraine pushed Finland and Sweden to seek to join the Alliance.

JH