The majority of Finns are not waiting for Sweden to join NATO together: survey
A majority of Finns want to go ahead and join NATO even if Sweden’s membership is delayed, a survey suggested on Thursday, after Turkey said it could accept Finland without Sweden, Agence France-Presse reported.
More than half of the respondents, 53 percent, answered in the negative when asked whether Finland should wait for Sweden, even if it takes longer to ratify Sweden’s accession, for example due to opposition from Turkey.
Only 28 percent believed that Finland should wait for Sweden and enter the US-led military alliance together.
The survey, conducted by Taloustutkimus and published in the Finnish daily newspaper Ilta-Sanomat, surveyed 1,021 Finns between January 30 and February 1.
Finland and Sweden abandoned decades of military non-alignment and applied to join NATO last May in response to Russia’s invasion of Ukraine.
But Turkey has so far refused to ratify the two countries’ bids for membership, mainly because of Sweden’s refusal to extradite dozens of suspects Ankara links to banned Kurdish fighters and a failed coup attempt in 2016.
Ankara also reacted with anger to a decision by Swedish police to allow a demonstration in January in which a right-wing extremist burned a copy of the Koran outside the Turkish embassy in Stockholm.
Turkish President Recep Tayyip Erdoğan made a clear distinction on Sunday between the positions taken by Sweden and Finland in recent months.
– If necessary, we can give another answer regarding Finland. Sweden will be shocked when we give a different answer for Finland, says Erdoğan.
The Finnish government has so far stressed that its priority remains to join the alliance alongside its Nordic neighbour.
“Our strong desire in Finland has been, and still is, to join NATO together with Sweden,” Foreign Minister Pekka Haavisto told reporters on Monday.
“Sweden is our closest ally in defense and foreign policy,” he said.