NEW MEMBER OF NATO: FINLAND AND SWEDEN’S SITUATION IN THE PROCESS

 

    First of all, Finland and Sweden applied for member of NATO on 18 May 2022 together and then triple memorandum was signed by Türkiye, Finland and Sweden in Madrid Summit on 28-30 June 2023 and after, two countries was invited to NATO for them to join as real member of NATO in the Summit. Finland was supporting Sweden to be in the process so much. Memorandum was signed by Turkish Foreign Minister Mevlüt Çavuşoğlu, Finn Foreign Minister Pekka Haavisto and Swede Foreign Minister Anne Linde. In final of the interiew, Sweden and Finland would support Türkiye in terrorism issues such as PKK, PYD, YPG and FETÖ actions and consequently, Türkiye would lift its veto. All of them were glad with the decisions made. In the process, we have seen many Twitter diplomacy examples such as Joe Biden’s congratulatory message and President of Finland Sauli Niinistö’s tweet about cooperation between Türkiye, Finland and Sweden and etc. As well as this, we can talk about that NATO’s member option was opened for Sweden and Finland after memorandum.

 

From 2022 to now, there was a positive vibe in the area about the topic and interviews were continuing to make. There were even no delays in the process. While eveything was getting better, there was an event that interreupted the process. In Sweden, protests started against to Türkiye and Quran was burned by a far-right politician. Türkiye condemned the protest and suspened the process for a time. After a time, NATO General Secratary Jens Stoltenberg came to Türkiye and interviews started again. As first, security concerns and expectations of Türkiye were discussed with Finland and Sweden again and actually Türkiye expressed itself as clear here. Türkiye was happy about terror improvements in Sweden and Finland but it was wanting to continue the process in the same way. Steps of countries will be important in the process, decisions can speed up or slow down so Türkiye said that it’s up to you completely.

 

In sum up, Türkiye want to see survivor of two countries about terrorism. NATO General Secratary Jens Stoltenberg was considering that Finland and Sweden took many big steps for Türkiye’s security politics. Finland and Sweden should be real member of NATO. Later, President Recep Tayyip Erdoğan expressed to start of approval time of Finland in the council. In that time, Türkiye blamed Sweden for terrorism. According to Türkiye, PKK/YPG protests was being in Stockholm Street. Altough, Türkiye said that we gave a terrorist list as near 120 person to Sweden and Sweden didn’t received the people to Türkiye therefore Türkiye can’t approach positively to Sweden. We showed our positive vibes with our signature today because there are no kind of things in Finland. President Recep Tayyip Erdoğan said that real steps are important after this time for Sweden. Finland procees was important for Türkiye for another way too. This was F-16 situation, Türkiye was wanting to buy F-16 from USA but this term was suspended by Washington. Türkiye was considering to take big step with this behaviour and it was waiting Washington to aswer the state. By the way, Sweden has a negative view of not being NATO member at the same time as Finland because they said that we may not to integrate better in this way according to Finland. Finally, Hungary approved process of NATO member of Finland on 27 March 2023 and Turkish Parliament approved on 30 March 2023 too and Finland joined NATO on its 74th anniversary. What will Finland, which has the powerful heavy weapons units in Western Europe, do for NATO after this time? We’ll see that together.

 

BETÜL ÜNAL

MUĞLA SITKI KOÇMAN ÜNİVERSİTESİ

BÖLGESEL ANALİZ TOPLULUĞU

SİYASET BİLİMİ VE ULUSLARARASI İLİŞKİLER