Finland and Sweden NATO ascension summit to start
Finland, Sweden and Turkey will hold a trilateral summit on the Nordic countries’ accession to NATO today.
Today’s summit will work from the trilateral memorandum first agreed upon between the three participants before the NATO summit on Strategic Concept in June, in which Turkey retracted its threat to veto Finland and Sweden’s membership. Finland and Sweden signed their official accession protocol last month after they accepted Turkey’s demands for a tougher stance on Kurdish groups.
Turkey has expressed frustration over a lack of progress in the extradition of Kurdish militants from Sweden and Finland and will likely keep the commitments pledged at the accession protocol in check at the summit. Turkey has sent a list of people affiliated with the Kurdistan Worker’s Party (PKK), deemed as a terrorist organization by the U.S. and the EU, to both countries.
So far, Sweden has passed a new terrorism law and agreed to extradite a Turkish man accused of fraud in its first move away from its traditional neutrality. Finland will likely be under pressure in the short-term to begin its own extraditions. Overall, Finland and Sweden’s modern militaries and geostrategic position will offer a significant counterweight against an offensive Russia should it extend its invasion beyond Ukraine.
