BRUSSELS (AP) 鈥� NATO Secretary-General Jens Stoltenberg expressed confidence Tuesday that Finland and Sweden will join the military alliance, just days after the government in Stockholm said it had done all it could to satisfy Turkey鈥檚 reservations about its membership.
Alarmed by , Sweden and Finland dropped their longstanding policies of military nonalignment and applied to join NATO in May. All 30 member countries must agree to admit the two Nordic neighbors to the .
has held up the process. The Turkish government wants Finland and Sweden to crack down on groups it considers to be terrorist organizations and to extradite people suspected of terror-related crimes. said last month that Sweden had not addressed his country's concerns.
鈥淚鈥檓 confident that the accession process will be finalized and that all NATO allies will ratify the accession protocols in their parliaments. That also goes for Turkey,鈥� Stoltenberg told reporters at the alliance鈥檚 Brussels headquarters.
Stoltenberg said the membership process normally takes years but that all 30 members invited Finland and Sweden in July to join and signed their accession protocols. Since then, 28 countries have endorsed the move through their national procedures. Only Turkey and Hungary have not.
鈥淭his has been the quickest accession process so far in NATO鈥檚 modern history,鈥� Stoltenberg said.
He also played down any risk that Finland and Sweden might come under attack or pressure for trying to join the military alliance, saying the United States and other allies have offered the two bilateral 鈥渟ecurity assurances鈥� until they are full members.
鈥淚t鈥檚 inconceivable that Finland and Sweden will face any military threat without NATO reacting to that,鈥� Stoltenberg said.
Last month, Turkish Foreign Minister Mevlut Cavusoglu said Sweden was not even 鈥渉alfway鈥� through fulfilling its commitments to Ankara. His remarks came after a Swedish court ruled against extraditing a journalist wanted by Turkish authorities for alleged links to the failed coup there in 2016.
But Swedish Prime Minister Ulf Kristersson has said his country had lived up to its commitments and that the decision now 鈥渓ies with Turkey.鈥� Turkey has not yet reacted publicly to his remarks.
The Associated Press
