Representatives of the 30 member states of the North Atlantic Treaty Organization (NATO) signed the necessary accession protocols to invite Sweden and Finland to join the Western alliance, several diplomats told the German News Agency.
The accession protocols allow NATO Secretary-General Jens Stoltenberg to invite Sweden and Finland to join the alliance formally.
Each NATO member state has yet to ratify the invitation to join with legislative approval of the accession protocols.
This process is one of the tasks of state parliaments and is expected to take six to eight months.
In this context, Turkey threatened again to block the accession of Sweden and Finland to NATO membership.
“Bloomberg” US news agency quoted Turkish Foreign Minister Mevlut Cavusoglu as saying yesterday that Turkey will not ratify NATO membership of both Sweden and Finland unless the two countries fulfill their promises to combat terrorism and extradite the suspects, according to a memorandum of understanding reached on the sidelines of a NATO summit in Madrid last week.
