If Finland joins NATO without us, it will be detrimental for all — Swedish PM

Ulf Kristersson, the Swedish Prime Minister, is calling for simultaneous approval of his country's and Finland's accession applications to the North Atlantic Treaty Organization, arguing that a "partitioned" entry would negatively affect the security of the region and the entire Alliance. He said that in an interview to Financial Times, reports European Pravda.  "We started this process together, we carried it out together, and we want to finish it together.

There are very, very good reasons for ratifying us at the same time before Vilnius [the NATO summit in July - ed.]," the Swedish prime minister believes. Kristersson warned the Alliance of the consequences if Turkey does not ratify Sweden's membership before the summit in Vilnius.

"I think it would be bad for Sweden, bad for our region, bad for NATO and bad for Sweden's ability, along with Finland, to provide security in the midst of a war happening nearby," he said. Sweden's prime minister told the FT he had "no plan" in case Helsinki decided to become a member of the Alliance separately from Stockholm, but added that "each country has to make its own decision".

In addition, Kristersson insisted that Sweden has fulfilled all the conditions of the trilateral memorandum with Finland and Turkey signed at the NATO summit in Madrid, and the final step for this will be the Swedish government's decision on anti-terror legislation on 2 March.

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"It's such a big piece of legislation that we actually had to change our constitution as of 1 January to be able to implement it," he said. This week, NATO Secretary General Jens Stoltenberg publicly admitted for the first time that Sweden and Finland, which jointly submitted an application to join the Alliance in May 2022, may become members of the association separately.

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