NATO Secretary-General Jens Stoltenberg has said that the military alliance stands ready to seize a historic moment and move quickly on allowing Finland and Sweden to join its ranks.
The two countries submitted their membership requests Virtually challenging objections from Russia.
The official applications, handed over by Finland and Sweden’s ambassadors to NATO, set a security clock ticking.
Russia, whose war on Ukraine spurred them to join the military organisation, has warned that it wouldn’t welcome such a move.
“I warmly welcome the requests by Finland and Sweden to join NATO. You are our closest partners,” Stoltenberg said.
“All allies agree on the importance of NATO enlargement. We all agree that we must stand together, and we all agree that this is an historic moment which we must seize.”
“This is a good day at a critical moment for our security,” a beaming Stoltenberg said, as he stood alongside the two envoys, with NATO,
Finnish and Swedish flags at their backs.
Russian President Vladimir Putin has demanded that the alliance stop expanding toward Russia’s borders, and several NATO allies, led by the United States and Britain, have signaled that they stand ready to provide security support to Finland and Sweden, media reports said.
The countries will only benefit from NATO’s Article 5 security guarantee – the part of the alliance’s founding treaty that pledges that any attack on one member would be considered an attack of them all – once the membership ratification process is concluded, probably in a few months.
