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Post by Admin on Jul 6, 2022 1:22:33 GMT
Prime Minister Justin Trudeau says Canada on Tuesday became the first NATO member to formally approve applications by Finland and Sweden to join the alliance. Trudeau is now urging other allies to move quickly to finalize their own ratification processes. “This brings the two countries a step closer to full membership,” he said in a statement. “Their membership will make NATO stronger.” Helsinki and Stockholm applied to join NATO in May, less than two months after Russia’s full-blown invasion of Ukraine. Canada’s blessing Tuesday to bring the Nordic countries into NATO’s fold was accelerated last month by the House of Commons’ unanimous support for their membership. The Canadian step also followed the move last week by NATO ally Turkey to lift its objection to the countries’ applications. Turkey, Finland and Sweden signed a memorandum of understanding ahead of the NATO summit in Madrid. The agreement came in response to Ankara’s concerns over the countries’ alleged support for Kurdish groups and arms embargoes. The parliaments of each individual NATO country must ratify the alliance’s additions of Finland and Sweden. NATO Secretary General Jens Stoltenberg declined last week to offer a precise timeline on when the countries will officially join the group. “We call on all NATO members to move swiftly to complete their ratification processes to limit opportunities for interference by adversaries,” Trudeau’s statement said Tuesday.
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Post by Admin on Jul 10, 2022 16:26:06 GMT
Six Royal Air Force fighter jets have flown to Finland and Sweden for joint training exercises, the UK government has said.
The exercise also follows the countries' applications to join Nato following Russia's invasion of Ukraine.
Two cutting-edge F-35 jets are among the aircraft taking part.
Sweden's defence minister said the training would "strengthen our ability to operate together in response to a crisis in our neighbourhood".
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Post by Admin on Aug 21, 2022 21:58:32 GMT
Nato forces deployed to Latvia amid fears of Russian aggression – BBC News 827,849 views Aug 20, 2022 Nato has deployed unprecedented numbers of forces to Latvia, a reaction to fears of future Russian aggression against the Baltic states.
Once part of the USSR, Latvia is now an independent country in the European Union, whose government has expressed staunch support for Ukraine.
But its close cultural ties to Russia is causing concern for the Latvian government - more than a quarter of Latvia’s population identifies as Russian.
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Post by Admin on Jan 29, 2023 21:23:12 GMT
Sweden’s process to join NATO should have been the easiest accession in the alliance’s history — then Turkish President Recep Tayyip Erdoğan decided to play hardball, mixing legitimate fears about terrorism with electoral opportunistic politicking. Unfortunately, various activists in Sweden, some Kremlin linked, then decided to exploit this highly fraught situation, and by aggravating Erdoğan and Turkey, they’ve now helped turn the country’s NATO accession from virtually guaranteed to one that’s now in serious jeopardy — and other countries should learn from this mess. When NATO leaders had assembled for their Madrid Summit last July, there was a buzz in the air: Allied countries were looking forward to welcoming two new members — and doing so within months rather than years. It was certain they would approve and swiftly ratify the membership applications from Sweden and Finland — two countries that were already extremely close NATO partners and would also bring significant military assets to the alliance. Alas, there was also the matter of Turkey’s presidential elections. “I’d advise future NATO applicants to check member states’ election schedule before submitting their application,” an exasperated Swedish legislator told me last year. But by then, Erdoğan had made clear that Turkey wasn’t going to ratify the application from Sweden – and as a result Finland — any time soon, possibly not until after Turkey’s presidential elections, now tentatively scheduled to take place this May. All throughout, the Turkish president, as well as officials speaking on his behalf, have kept communicating via news media that Sweden hadn’t fulfilled the obligations to which it had committed in the memorandum it signed with Finland and Turkey last June. The agreement was designed to allay Turkey’s fears about Sweden — and to a much lesser degree Finland — hosting Kurdish activists Ankara sees as a national security threat. And this is where activists opposed to Swedish NATO membership seem to have spotted an opportunity. Last week, a tiny pro-Kurdish group calling itself the Rojava Committee of Sweden turned up at Stockholm’s City Hall with an effigy of Erdoğan. The dummy was then hung by its feet. Swedish Prime Minister Ulf Kristersson called the act sabotage, while Erdoğan spokesman Fahrettin Altun tweeted: “We condemn in the strongest possible terms the targeting of Türkiye and its democratically elected president by members of the terrorist organization PKK in Sweden . . . That PKK terrorists can challenge the Swedish government at the heart of Stockholm is proof that the Swedish authorities have not taken necessary steps against terrorism — as they have been claiming in recent days.” Four days later, a group of far-right activists led by the Danish provocateur Rasmus Paludan gathered in front of Turkey’s embassy in Stockholm and burnt the Quran. Ankara responded swiftly: “This incident has once again shown that Sweden has not given up on supporting terrorism,” Numan Kurtulmuş, deputy chairman of Erdogan’s Justice and Development Party, told reporters, adding that as a result, Turkey may never ratify Sweden’s NATO application. Meanwhile, these turbulent developments have now led Finland to float the heretofore inconceivable idea that it may join NATO without Sweden. This means that Sweden’s virtually perfect application was sabotaged — potentially fatally so — by a minuscule number of activists with wildly divergent agendas, and now it looks like Russia may well have been stirring the trouble.
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Post by Admin on Mar 29, 2023 0:57:44 GMT
Finland is now one step closer to joining NATO after the Hungarian parliament approved its bid by an overwhelming majority. Hungary was one of the last NATO members to ratify Finland's accession after the vote was repeatedly delayed. Only Turkey remains, and has announced its intention to vote on Finland's bid soon. Finland had applied to join the alliance together with Sweden, but Turkish objections to Sweden's bid mean Finland looks likely to join first.
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