Will sign protocols on Sweden’s, Finland’s accession to NATO: Biden

New Delhi: US President Joe Biden on Wednesday said that he will sign protocols on Sweden’s and Finland’s accession to NATO.

Earlier in the day, US Congress passed a resolution on the ratification of documents on these countries’ accession to the Alliance. Under US laws, the ratification procedure is executed by the president upon the Senate’s consent. Biden hailed the Senate voting results, noting that this was the fastest Senate process for NATO expansion protocols since 1981.

“Finland and Sweden joining the Alliance will further strengthen NATO’s collective security and deepen the transatlantic partnership. I look forward to signing the accession protocols and welcoming Sweden and Finland into NATO,” Biden said in a press statement released by the White House press service.

Stockholm and Helsinki applied for NATO membership on May 18 but the accession process was blocked by Turkey, which demanded these outlaw Kurdish organizations as a terrorist, extradite persons accused of terrorism, or involvement in the attempted coup in 2016, and lift the bans on weapons supplies to Turkey.

Turkish President Recep Tayyip Erdogan held talks with Finnish President Sauli Niinisto and Swedish Prime Minister Magdalena Andresson, and NATO Secretary General Jens Stoltenberg on June 28, ahead of a NATO summit in Madrid. The talks yielded a memorandum on Sweden’s and Finland’s accession to NATO, which is to be ratified by all the alliance’s member states. By now, more than 20 out of 30 NATO members have done it.

(Vinayak)