Joe Biden greeted Swedish Prime Minister Magdalena Andersson and Finnish President Sauli Niinistö with full salute on Thursday to once again show his enthusiastic support for the two countries joining NATO.
Following a meeting with the Finnish leader and his Swedish counterpart, President Biden stressed that the two countries are compliant all standards to join the defensive alliance. His administration will also present to Congress reports on the accession of Sweden and Finland. The green light from America’s elected officials should be a formality, because the kind of politics is almost unanimous.
While awaiting the end of the process, Washington indicated that the two candidate countries were already benefiting from American military protection, without providing exact outlines.
While their applications for membership inNATO Considered, the United States will cooperate with Finland and Sweden to remain vigilant to any threat to our common security, and to deter and respond to any aggression or threat of aggression.said Joe Biden on Wednesday.
The leader ofNATO it believes it will resolve the dispute with Turkey
Like Joe Biden, the secretary general ofNATO, Jens Stoltenberg, is in favor of joining Sweden and Finland in his organization. However, a dissonant voice has emerged in recent days, that of Turkey.
Turkish President Recep Tayyip Erdogan, who surprised everyone last week at the sudden threat to block the two countries ’entry into the alliance, reiterated naresolba Thursday to counter their membership.
When an important ally like Turkey expresses security concerns, raises questions, then yes, clearly the only way to fix them is to sit down [autour d’une table] to find […] an agreement to move forwardsaid senior officials.
Ankara accuses Sweden of being the nursery of terrorist organizations such as the PKK, a Kurdish organization, and criticizes these two Nordic countries for not responding to requests for the extradition of people accused as terrorists, as well as for having frozen arms exports to Turkey.
” We have a long historyNATO to transcend our differences and reconcile. I am quite confident that we can reach an agreement on this issue. “
Mr. Stoltenberg reaffirmed his trust in one quick decision to accept Sweden and Finland, who wanted to place themselves under the umbrella of the Atlantic Alliance, as a result of Russia’s invasion of Ukraine.
Turkey’s irritation is also linked to some states ’support for the YPG, a Kurdish armed group. The PKK is considered a terrorist organization by Ankara, but also by the United States and the European Union. On the other hand, the YPG has fought the jihadists of the Islamic State armed group, with the United States in particular.
Meeting in Brussels on Wednesday morning for the official presentation of the Swedish and Finnish candidacies, the ambassadors of the alliance countries failed to agree on the immediate opening of discussions on the accession, due to Turkish opposition.
Source: Radio-Canada