Swedish PM: Finland to Join NATO before Sweden

Sweden’s Prime Minister Ulf Kristersson admitted that Finland would join NATO faster than his country.

"Now everything says that Finland will become a member of NATO before Sweden," Kristersson said, during a conference of the moderate coalition party.

On his part, Fides Matti Kochis, the head of the ruling faction in the Hungarian parliament, mentioned that Budapest will vote on Finland's accession to NATO on March 27 and that a decision will be taken on Sweden's membership in the alliance at a later time.

Finland and Sweden applied to join NATO, in May 2022, but Ankara prevented their accession process and demanded that they declare the Kurdish organizations present on their lands "terrorist organizations", and that Turkiye extradites over 33 accused of terrorism, or of participating in the attempted coup in Turkiye in 2016.

Tensions escalated in Turkish-Swedish relations, following the burning of the Holy Quran by the leader of the far-right "Hard Line" party, Rasmus Paludan, in front of the Turkish embassy in Stockholm on January 21.

Turkish President Recep Tayyip Erdogan explained that Sweden should not count on Turkiye’s approval of its request to join NATO, because it allowed anti-Turkish measures in its territory.