Turkey was the last of the 30 NATO members to approve Finland’s membership.
Turkey has finally approved Finland’s request to join NATOwhich ended months of delays, but at the same time continued to block Sweden from joining the military alliance. On Thursday, the Turkish parliament unanimously voted for Finland’s membershipremoving the last hurdle in the joining process.
The vote is the fulfillment of Turkish President Recep Tayyip Erdogan’s “promise” that he will allow Finland to join the defense alliance, reports CNN. Jens Stoltenberg also announced this on Twitter. Turkey was the last of NATO’s 30 members to approve Finland’s membership, while Hungary did so only on Monday.
I welcome the vote of the Grand National Assembly of#Turkeyto complete the ratification of#Finland’s accession. This will make the whole#NATOfamily stronger & safer.
— Jens Stoltenberg (@jensstoltenberg)March 30, 2023
Almost 10 months after formally applying for membership in response to Russia’s invasion of Ukraine, Finland will soon become NATO’s newest member. Once some more paperwork is completed, Finland will formally join the 30-nation Western military alliance, ending decades of military neutrality.
For the Nordic country, which shares a border with Russia and has sought to maintain a careful balance in its relations with Moscow and the West — the Cold War-era term for “Finlandization” stems from that acrimonious act — joining NATO is a big deal. At the same time, it is also the culmination of Finland’s security policy in the last three decades, which has kept a careful eye on Russia and in recent years kept the so-called NATO option in reserve if Russia oversteps. “This is a really big change,” said Juhana Aunesluoma, an expert on the history of Finnish foreign and security policy at the University of Helsinki.
Finland’s attitude towards Russia and national security goes back centuries: it spent more than 100 years as part of the Russian Empireuntil it isn’t declared independence in 1917. Two decades later, in the Winter War, the Soviet Union invaded in an attempt to annex Finland, seizing some territory in the east of the country; after Finland allied with Nazi Germany during World War II, it sought to reclaim the territory. During the Cold War, Finland pursued a strategy of Finlandization, refraining from provoking the Soviets and staying out of NATO, while continuing to pursue closer relations with the West.
Since the end of the Cold War, the country’s leadership has followed a two-pronged security strategy: maintaining good relations with Russia and strengthening its national defense. Finland cultivated economic and social ties with Russia, but at the same time built a large military. In a country of 5.5 million people, Finland can call even 280,000 soldiers and has a total of 900,000 trained reservists.
(WORLD)