NATO formally invited Sweden and Finland to join its alliance. The group collectively decided to approve countries' applications to join after Turkey dropped its objections.
Finland and Sweden showed their intention to join the 30-member Western
defensive alliance NATO in May 2022, in the response to the Russia's invasion
of Ukraine.
Two day summit of NATO has been ended in
Madrid, Spain on June 30, 2022. It is believed that Finland and Sweden will
get the membership of NATO. Initially, Turkey was creating obstacles in the
membership of these two countries and threatened to veto their application but
later Turkey dropped its objections to the two nations joining NATO
and agreed to support Sweden and Finland's membership of the alliance. Sweden and
Finland could not join NATO without Turkey's support, because all current
members of alliance must agree if a new country wants to join NATO.
NATO Summit 2022
Mr. Erdogan, President of Turkey, had been blocking the Nordic countries’ NATO bids amid concerns over Sweden’s support for Kurdistan Workers Party (PKK), which has attacked nonmilitary targets and killed civilians in Turkey. Turkey also wants PKK members and Gulenists to be extradited from Sweden. The Nordic states agreed to address Turkey's pending extradition requests of terror suspects expeditiously. Kurdistan Workers Party (PKK) is designated as a terrorist group by Western allies as well as Turkey.
Russia's Reaction
Russia strongly opposed the two states joining. Putin said, "With Sweden
and Finland, we don`t have the problems that we have with Ukraine. They want to
join NATO, they can join. But they must understand that there was no threat
before, while now, if military contingents and military infrastructure are
deployed there, we will have to respond symmetrically and raise the same
threats for those territories."
What is NATO ?
North Atlantic Treaty Organization (NATO) is a military alliance
established by the North Atlantic Treaty in April, 1949, by the United
States, Canada, and several Western European nations to provide collective
security against the USSR.
There are currently 30 members of NATO. After joining Finland and Sweden, there
will be total 32 members of NATO. NATO's original members were US, UK, Belgium,
Canada, Denmark, France, Iceland, Italy, Luxembourg, Netherlands, Norway, and
Portugal.
Present NATO Members and Joining year
BELGIUM (1949)
CANADA (1949)
DENMARK (1949)
FRANCE (1949)
ICELAND (1949)
ITALY (1949)
LUXEMBOURG (1949)
NETHERLANDS (1949)
NORWAY (1949)
PORTUGAL (1949)
THE UNITED KINGDOM (1949)
THE UNITED STATES (1949)
GREECE (1952)
TÜRKIYE (1952)
GERMANY (1955)
SPAIN (1982)
CZECH REPUBLIC (1999)
HUNGARY (1999)
POLAND (1999)
BULGARIA (2004)
ESTONIA (2004)
LATVIA (2004)
LITHUANIA (2004)
ROMANIA (2004)
SLOVAKIA (2004)
SLOVENIA (2004)
ALBANIA (2009)
CROATIA (2009)
MONTENEGRO (2017)
NORTH MACEDONIA (2020)
NATO’s purpose is to guarantee the
freedom and security of its members through political and military means.
POLITICAL - NATO promotes
democratic values and enables members to consult and cooperate on defense
and security-related issues to solve problems, build trust and, in the long
run, prevent conflict.
MILITARY - NATO is committed to
the peaceful resolution of disputes. If diplomatic efforts fail, it has the
military power to undertake crisis-management operations. These are
carried out under the collective defense clause of NATO's founding treaty
- Article 5 of the Washington Treaty or under a United Nations
mandate, alone or in cooperation with other countries and international organizations.
Article 5 has been invoked once - in response to the 9/11 terrorist attacks in
the United States in 2001.
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