Post: US Ambassador says when Finland and Sweden can be admitted to NATO

The Finnish, NATO and Swedish flags. Archive photo

US Ambassador to Helsinki Hickey said Finland and Sweden could be admitted to NATO in 2022

WASHINGTON, September 23 – RIA Novosti. US Ambassador to Helsinki Douglas Hickey believes Finland and Sweden could be admitted to NATO before the end of this year, informs American newspaper Politico.

It is noted that only three of the 30 NATO countries have not yet ratified the accession of Finland and Sweden to the alliance: Slovakia, Hungary and Turkey. At the same time, according to the newspaper, the general assumption is that Hungary and Turkey will wait until 2023 to make the final decision.

“Douglas Hickey …said optimistic that NATO will have 32 members by the end of this year. Correspondents and experts – ed.), warned that the situation could change. However, Hickey believes that Turkish President Recep Tayyip Erdogan does not want to be alone, and which encourages him to act quickly on this matter,” he writes in the newspaper.

On May 18, Finland and Sweden applied to the NATO Secretary General to join the alliance, against the background of the Russian special military operation in Ukraine. Initially, Ankara prevented the start of the evaluation process of these applications, but on June 29, Turkey, Sweden and Finland signed a security memorandum that took all Ankara’s concerns into account. Turkey, on the other hand, withdrew its objections to the entry of these two European countries into NATO.

Source: Ria

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