Finland and Sweden to join NATO despite Turk opposition

 Reuters:

Finland and Sweden will joint NATO at the same time, their prime ministers said on Friday, presenting a united front to Turkey which has raised questions about both their applications.

The Nordic neighbours asked to join the alliance in May in response to Russia's invasion of Ukraine, but ran into objections from Turkey which accused the two of harbouring groups it deems terrorists.

Finnish Prime Minister Sanna Marin said on Friday Turkey's president had told her he had more questions for Sweden than for her country. But she said she would not leave Sweden behind in the process.

"It is very important for us, of course, that Finland and Sweden would join NATO hand in hand," Marin told reporters at a joint press conference in Helsinki with her Swedish counterpart.

Turkish President Tayyip Erdogan said as recently as Oct. 6 that his country still opposed Sweden's bid.

Swedish Prime Minister Ulf Kristersson, who took office last week, said: "We have been taking every step, so far, hand in hand and none of us have any other ambition."

He said he would meet Erdogan soon. "It's completely legitimate that Turkey gets confirmation that Sweden is doing what Sweden has committed to do within the framework of the agreement," he added.
...

It is not clear what Turkey's opposition is all about.  The two nordic countries help NATO's northern front against Russian aggression.  I think they were motivated by the Russian invasion of Ukraine. 

Comments

Post a Comment

Popular posts from this blog

Should Republicans go ahead and add Supreme Court Justices to head off Democrats

Washington Post: Some Democrats eye adding more justices to the Supreme Court to change its ideological bent The once-remote idea has gained the attention of liberals angered by the GOP push to remake the federal courts. Probably the easy way to defeat this court-packing scheme is for Trump to propose doing the same thing now.  It would lead to Democrat denunciations and claims that it would be wrong, thereby blowing up any attempt by them in the unfortunate event of Democrats winning a presidential election.
Read more

29 % of companies say they are unlikely to keep insurance after Obamacare

Conn Carroll: A new survey of 368 midsize to large companies found that 29% of them are considering terminating their active employee health care plans when Obamacare is full implemented in 2014. Only 71% of employers surveyed said they did not expect to drop their health coverage, while 20% said they did not know and 9% said they were planning to exit. The latest survey, conducted by Towers Watson, echoes an ealier survey by McKinsey & Co. finding that 30% of private-sector employers were planning to drop their employee health insurance coverage by 2014. When the Congressional Budget Office crunched Obamacare's spending numbers, they estimated that only 7% of employees currently covered by employer-sponsored plans would lose their plans. ... This means the cost of the health care fiasco will be hundreds of billions more than estimated by the CBO and Congressional Democrat. It is also clear that Obama's pledge that you could keep your health care plan if you wanted t
Read more