Finland's Defense Minister Announces NATO Membership Timeline

Finland's Defense Minister Antti Kaikkonen believes that the country will join NATO before the summit of the organization, which is set to take place in Vilnius on July 11-12. This was reported on Friday by Finnish national broadcaster Yle.

“We meet the criteria for NATO membership and are committed to the memorandum of understanding signed by Finland, Sweden, and Turkey at the Madrid summit. I believe there are good grounds to assume that Finland will become a NATO member at the Vilnius NATO summit,” Kaikkonen's words are quoted by Yle.

The Defense Minister also emphasized that the impact of NATO membership on the lives of conscripts would be minimal.

On May 18, Sweden and Finland applied for NATO membership, but the process was immediately blocked by Turkey, which demanded that these countries declare Kurdish organizations as terrorist organizations and extradite those accused of terrorism or individuals involved in the 2016 coup attempt in the country.