Turkey has approved a NATO application from Finland

The War Between Finland and Sweden in the NATO Era after the Ukrainian Invasion of Crimea and the Importance of Rule of Law in Turkey

Turkey has finally approved the application from Sweden to join NATO after months of delays, but it continues to prevent other Nordic countries from joining the military alliance.

Alarmed by Russia’s invasion of Ukraine a year ago, Finland and Sweden abandoned their decades-long policy of nonalignment and applied to join the alliance.

Sweden’s bid to join the alliance, meanwhile, has been left hanging, with both Turkey and Hungary holding out on giving it the green light despite expressing support for NATO’s expansion.

NATO has an open-door policy, meaning that any country can be invited to join if it expresses an interest, as long as it is able and willing to uphold the principles of the bloc’s founding treaty. Any member state can veto a new country from joining under the accession rules.

Erdogan accused Finland and Sweden of housing Kurdish “terrorist organizations,” while Hungarian Prime Minister Viktor Orban claimed they were spreading “outright lies” about his country’s rule of law record.

Relations between the two countries have deteriorated over the years makes it more challenging to bridge the gap, according to a writing by Kovcs.

Turkey is a powerful NATO member, with the bloc’s second-largest military after the United States. Its location at the southeastern flank of the alliance makes it a strategically important member. It acts as a buffer between the West and a swathe of Middle Eastern nations with a history of political instability, and where Western states have major interests. It became part of the alliance in 1952, just three years after it was founded.

Erdogan has disagreed with NATO allies on a number of issues, including Syria and Libya, and opposed the appointment of Denmark’s Anders Fogh Rasmussen as head of NATO, until then-US President Barack Obama pledged that one of Rasmussen’s deputies would be a Turk.

Turkey was angered by a series of protests in Sweden that included the burning of the Quran by an anti-Islam activist outside the Turkish Embassy.

Some Swedish politicians have made statements about the state of the democracy in Hungary and they were responsible for ensuring that billions of European Union funds were frozen over alleged rule-of-law and democracy violations.

Akif Cagatay Kilic, a legislator from the governing party, said before the vote they had some expectations and requests about the security of the country. “I would like to underline the concrete steps and their implementation by Finland, which supported and shaped the decision we are taking here.”

Asked earlier this week about Sweden’s NATO membership, Erdogan told reporters: “There are certain things we expect of them. They must be accomplished before then.

Sweden is hopeful that it can join before the NATO summit in July, after making constitutional changes to pass harsher anti-terrorism laws.