Finland will become an official member of NATO on Tuesday
The office of Finnish President Sauli Niinisto announced today, Monday, that the country will become an official member of the North Atlantic Treaty Organization (NATO) tomorrow, Tuesday, which was also confirmed by NATO Secretary General Jens Stoltenberg.
“Tomorrow (Tuesday) we will welcome Finland as the 31st member,” Stoltenberg said, explaining that the Finnish flag will be raised on Tuesday afternoon at the NATO headquarters in Brussels.
On Friday, Stoltenberg confirmed that Finland would officially join the Western military alliance within days, after Turkey’s decision to ratify the matter. He added that all the 30 NATO countries have ratified the accession protocol.
The Turkish Parliament was the latest to ratify Finland’s membership among the 30 member states of the alliance, after the Hungarian legislature approved a similar bill earlier last week.
Finland maintained a “balance” in its relationship between the western and eastern poles, throughout the decades of the Cold War until 1992, but it chose with its neighbor Sweden, which abandoned two centuries of its policy of neutrality, to sign the protocol to join the “Atlantic” on the fifth of July last year. About two months after applying for membership, following the Russian invasion of Ukraine.
The membership of the Atlantic by two member states of the European Union was subject to much debate and debate, both external and internal, but in the end the politicians were able to persuade the reluctant street to accept joining NATO.
With this membership, Russia will have additional land contact with the Atlantic, with its land borders with Finland, and expand the scope of NATO control in the Baltic waters.
(AFP, Archyde.com, The New Arab)