Niinistö, Stoltenberg discuss Finland´s NATO joining over phone

President Sauli Niinistö on Monday held a telephone conversation with the Secretary General of NATO (North Atlantic Treaty Organisation), Jens Stoltenberg and discussed the situation of Finland´s membership in the military alliance, according to the twitter posts of Niinistö and Stoltenberg.

The NATO Secretary General during the conversation assured the President about Finland´s membership soon.

“I spoke with NATO SecGen @jens stoltenberg about the ratifications of our membership, the future role of Finland as a NATO ally, the importance of continuing the grain transports from the Black Sea, and the state of the war,” the President wrote in his twitter,

“Good call with President Sauli @niinisto. We addressed #Russia's war on #Ukraine and #Finland’s path to #NATO. Finland is already more secure, and your membership will make us all safer & stronger. We look forward to having you as full members of our Alliance soon,” Stoltenberg wrote in his twitter.

So far 28 countries out of total 30 ratified the NATO accession protocols for Finland and Sweden.

The countries are USA, Italy, Canada, Estonia, Norway, Denmark, Iceland, United Kingdom, Albania, Poland, Latvia, Slovenia, Croatia, The Netherlands, Luxemburg, Bulgaria, Germany, Romania, Lithuania, Montenegro, Belgium, North Macedonia, France, Czech Republic, Greece, Spain Portugal and Slovakia ratified the membership protocols.

Finland´s accession protocol needs to be ratified by the rest two NATO member countries Hungary and Turkey, although some questions from Turkey still remain in this regard.

Turkey, which already agreed to support Finland´s membership, is now raising question regarding the extradition of members of the Kurdistan Workers Party (PKK) and its leaders are very often threatening to block the membership.

On July 5, the ambassadors of the 30 NATO states signed the accession protocols at the organization's headquarters in Brussels, with the foreign ministers of the two Nordic countries in attendance.