Turkey's Erdogan paves way to ratify Finland NATO accession
www.dw.com

...Turkey's President Recep Tayyip Erdogan has said he will support Finland's bid to join NATO and ask parliament to vote on ratifying its accession, which should prove a formality.

President Recep Tayyip Erdogan said on Friday that Turkey would start the process of ratifying Finland's NATO membership bid in parliament, saying that the country had taken "sincere and concrete steps" to allay Turkey's concerns about Finland hosting Kurds and other opposition forces who fled Turkey.

The breakthrough came as Finnish President Sauli Niinisto was in Ankara to meet with Erdogan and 10 months after both Finland and Sweden applied to become NATO members in the wake of Russia's invasion of Ukraine, having remained neutral throughout the Cold War.

"We have decided to start the protocol of Finland's accession to NATO in our parliament," Erdogan said following talks with his visiting Finnish counterpart Sauli Niinisto.

NATO Secretary General Jens Stoltenberg said that he welcomed the decision "to move ahead with the ratification of Finland's membership in NATO," addng, "This will strengthen Finland's security, it will strengthen Sweden's security."