The majority leader in the US Senate says that Sweden and Finland should join NATO if they are ready
Sweden and Finland should join NATO tomorrow if they are ready and willing, said the US Senate Republican minority leader Mitch McConnell on Tuesday.
“Sweden and Finland, two countries that have never belonged to NATO, are considering joining, and I think we should announce them tomorrow if they are ready to join,” McConnell said during a new conference.
On Thursday, NATO Secretary General Jens Stoltenberg invited Sweden and Finland to participate in a virtual NATO summit on the situation in and around Ukraine on Friday. On the same day, Finnish Prime Minister Sanna Marin said that Finland would be ready to join NATO “if the issue of national security becomes urgent”.
The countries’ interest in NATO membership arose as a result of Russian military operations in Ukraine, which Russian President Vladimir Putin said aims to demilitarize and de-Nazify the country in defense of the self-proclaimed republics of the Donbas region.
Russian Foreign Ministry spokeswoman Maria Zakharova said on Friday that Moscow must answer if Sweden and Finland become members of NATO.
(Only the title and image of this report may have been reworked by Business Standard staff; the rest of the content is automatically generated from a syndicated feed.)
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