in-cyprus 3 April 2023 - by Stelios Marathovouniotis
Finland will officially become a member of NATO on Tuesday, the Finnish president’s office has announced.
The announcement was also confirmed by NATO’s secretary general, Jens Stoltenberg.
This is a step that will make Finland safer and the alliance stronger, Stoltenberg said on Monday.
“We will raise the Finnish flag for the first time here at NATO headquarters. It will be a good day for Finland’s security, for Nordic security and for NATO as a whole,” he told reporters in Brussels.
“Sweden will also be safer as a result.”
The Nordic nation, which shares a border with Russia, applied to join the alliance after the invasion of Ukraine last year.
Turkey was the last of NATO’s 30 members to accept Finland’s application last month.
Turkey’s President Recep Tayyip Erdogan said earlier in March that Finland had secured Turkey’s blessing after taking concrete steps to keep promises to crack down on groups seen by Ankara as terrorists, including the Kurdish PKK, and to free up defence exports.
(With information from Reuters)
