Finland in middle of NATO process: Finnish PM

“Turkey has noted they will ratify our application before the election, also Hungary has said the same.”
Finnish Prime Minister, Sanna Marin (Photo: Kurdistan 24)
Finnish Prime Minister, Sanna Marin (Photo: Kurdistan 24)

ERBIL (Kurdistan 24) – The Finnish Prime Minister, Sanna Marin, told Kurdistan 24’s Barzan Hassan during the EU summit in Brussels on Friday that they are still in the middle of the NATO ratification process.

“We are in the middle of the NATO process, Turkey has noted they will ratify our application before the election, also Hungary has said the same,” she said.

Hungary's parliament will vote on Finland's NATO accession on March 27.

However, she refused to not answer a question about whether this could endanger the small Kurdish diaspora living in Finland, and lead to deportation or extradition of Kurdish activists to Turkey.

“There hasn't been any discussion about these matters,” she said.

Both Sweden and Finland applied for NATO-membership in May 2022 following Russia’s operation in Ukraine. But both Hungary and Turkey were reluctant to accept the two countries to the alliance.

The Sweden parliament recently voted for joining NATO.

But the Turkish President Recep Tayyip Erdogan earlier announced that they started the ratification process for Finland, but won’t accept Sweden since Sweden did not not accept extradition requests.