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Finland is sticking to its decision to join NATO along with its neighbor Sweden and hopes to do so before July, Finnish Foreign Minister Pekka Havisto said today, quoted by Reuters.
Turkey's President Recep Tayyip Erdogan announced yesterday that amid growing tensions with Stockholm, Ankara may agree to Finland becoming a NATO member before Sweden, and Turkish Foreign Minister Mevlüt Çavuşoğlu made a similar statement today.
"We still strongly desire to join NATO together with Sweden," Havisto told a news conference in Helsinki.
Last week, Turkey suspended NATO membership talks with Sweden and Finland because of protests in Stockholm, which included the burning of the Koran.
Turkey may give the green light to Finland's NATO membership before Sweden
Sweden and Finland applied to join NATO last year after the Russian invasion of Ukraine and need the approval of all the alliance's member states.
As of now, only Turkey and Hungary have not yet ratified the membership of the two northern countries.
"I still see July's NATO summit in Vilnius as an important milestone and hope that both countries will be accepted as members of the alliance by then at the latest," Havisto said.
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Finland and Sweden