Jens Stoltenberg announces that Finland will formally join NATO in the coming days
Finland will formally join NATO in the coming days after Turkey's parliament ratified the Nordic country's accession to the North Atlantic Alliance on Thursday, the organisation's Secretary General Jens Stoltenberg announced on Friday, welcoming the Ankara legislature's decision, according to caleaeuropeană.ro.
"All 30 NATO allies have ratified the accession protocol. I look forward to the flying of the Finnish flag at NATO headquarters in the coming days," Stoltenberg wrote on his Twitter account.
The Turkish parliament voted Thursday in favour of ratifying Finland's NATO membership, becoming the last of 30 allied legislatures to approve the Scandinavian republic's entry into the North Atlantic Alliance and giving Helsinki the green light to officially become NATO's 31st member state soon.
Turkey was the last remaining NATO member to ratify the Nordic country's accession to the North Atlantic Alliance, after Hungary's parliament did the same on Monday.
At present, 28 of the 30 member states, including Romania, have ratified the two Nordic countries' accession to the North Atlantic Alliance, with the exceptions of Hungary and Turkey, which still have objections to Sweden's final accession.
The accession of Finland, which has a 1,340-kilometre land border with Russia, will double the common border between the North Atlantic Alliance and the Russian Federation. Finland's and Sweden's accession to NATO would also mean that all countries bordering the Baltic Sea except Russia would be allied states, as would the Arctic Council, the body that brings together countries bordering the world's fourth ocean. With Finland and Sweden joining NATO, the alliance will protect 96% of EU citizens.
