NATO asserted, on Tuesday, that the alliance has no plans to send troops or establish any military bases to Sweden or Finland in case the two Nordic countries finalized their process for joining the organization.
The Deputy Secertary General of the defensive alliance Mircea Geoana said in a telephone interview with AFP: “We don’t plan to have an additional presence in either country, they have formidable national forces. They’re capable of defending themselves.”
The comments of Geoana came after the latest warnings of the Russian President Vladimir Putin last week, threatening: “If military contingents and military infrastructure were deployed there, we would be obliged to respond symmetrically and raise the same threats for those territories where threats have arisen for us.”
Geoana commented: “We don’t plan to have NATO bases in these two countries, because they have a very high level of military and strategic maturity.”
Yesterday, the accession process was launched, therefore, the parliaments of the NATO’s 30 member states to approve Oslo and Helsinki’s memberships, especially after Turkey signed a memorandum with the two Nordic states for paving the way of their memberships.
The Deputy Secertay General expressed: “We hope the process will be completed quickly,” adding: “many countries have already launched” steps towards ratification — although he declined to lay out a precise timetable.
He also asserted that NATO members’ and allies’ showing full support for Ukraine in defending itself against the Russian invasion.
