Secretary-General of the North Atlantic Treaty Organization (NATO), Jens Stoltenberg has announced that Finland will become the 31st member of the military alliance tomorrow, Tuesday, April 4, 2023.
“From tomorrow, Finland will be a full member of the alliance,” Stoltenberg told reporters in Brussels.
Stoltenberg disclosed that Turkey, the last country to have ratified Finland’s membership, will hand its official texts to U.S. Secretary of State, Antony Blinken on Tuesday as NATO Foreign Ministers gather in Brussels. Stoltenberg said that he would then invite Finland to do the same.
A flag raising ceremony to add the Finnish flag to those of the other members will take place at NATO headquarters at on Tuesday afternoon.
“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.”
NATO Secretary General, Jens Stoltenberg
“Sweden is not left alone. Sweden is as close as it can come as a full-fledged member,” Stoltenberg asserted.
Finnish President, Sauli Niinistö and Defense Minister, Antti Kaikkonen will attend the ceremony, along with Foreign Minister, Pekka Haavisto.
“It is a historic moment for us. For Finland, the most important objective at the meeting will be to emphasize NATO’s support to Ukraine as Russia continues its illegal aggression. We seek to promote stability and security throughout the Euro-Atlantic region.”
Pekka Haavisto
Finland’s membership is one of the most important moments in NATO’s recent history. Turkey had delayed the application, complaining that Finland was supporting “terrorists”.
Sweden applied to join NATO at the same time last May, but Turkey is blocking it over similar complaints. Turkish President, Recep Tayyip Erdogan has accused it of embracing Kurdish militants and allowing them to demonstrate on the streets of Stockholm.
Any NATO expansion needs the support of all its members. NATO officials are also keen to bring Sweden within the fold before U.S. President Joe Biden and his alliance counterparts meet in the Lithuanian capital, Vilnius on July 11-12, 2023.
Finland, a country with a 1,340km (832 mile) border with Russia and one of the most powerful arsenals of artillery pieces in Western Europe, decided to ditch its neutrality and join the alliance in response to Russia’s full-scale invasion of Ukraine.
Sweden also abandoned a longstanding commitment to neutrality in applying to join NATO, but unlike its neighbor, it does not share a border with Russia.
Major Strategic Setback
For Russian President Vladimir Putin, Finland’s accession is a major strategic setback. He sent his army into Ukraine last year in the expectation that it would check NATO’s expansion and weaken Western collectivism. In fact, it has achieved the exact opposite.
Russia’s Deputy Foreign Minister, Alexander Grushko, stated that Moscow would respond to Finland becoming NATO’s member by bolstering its defenses if needed.
“We will strengthen our military potential in the west and in the northwest,” Grushko said in remarks carried by a Russian news agency.
“In case of deployment of forces of other NATO members on the territory of Finland, we will take addition steps to ensure Russia’s military security.”
Alexander Grushko
One of NATO’s founding principles is that of collective defense, meaning an attack on one member nation is treated as an attack on them all.
Finland will become the seventh NATO country on the Baltic Sea, further isolating Russia’s coastal access at St Petersburg and on its small exclave of Kaliningrad.
Finnish public opinion has been radically altered by Russia’s invasion of Ukraine. Almost overnight last spring, support for NATO membership soared from an underwhelming one-third of Finns to almost 80%.
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