“What is important is that we all agree, as 30 NATO members and now with Finland and Sweden, that we need to be together in the fight against terrorism,” underlined NATO Secretary General
Finland and Sweden will now have the status of countries that have been invited by the Alliance and will participate in NATO discussions, said the Alliance Secretary General Jens Stoltenberg at the joint press conference he gave with Finnish Foreign Minister Peeka Haavisto and his Swedish counterpart Ann Linde after signing the accession protocols.
“I want to thank Turkey, Finland and Sweden for their constructive approach. THE tripartite agreement that they signed at the Madrid Summit made today (the signing of the accession protocols) possible. Now all three sides are working hard on its implementation, especially in the fight against terrorism,” noted Mr. Stoltenberg.
“I am now counting on all allies to assure a speedy ratification of accession in accordance with national procedures,” he added.
In addition, the NATO secretary general pointed out that “the security of Finland and Sweden is important to our alliance including during the ongoing ratification process”, noting that many allies are already clearly committed to the security of the two countries and the NATO has increased its presence in the region including additional exercises. Also, answering a question on the question of Turkeythe objections he had expressed on terrorism issues in relation to Finland and Sweden and the extradition of suspects, Jens Stoltenberg noted that “terrorism is a challenge for all NATO allies in different ways.”
“What matters is that we all agree, as 30 NATO members and now with Finland and Sweden, that we need to be together in the fight against terrorism,” he underlined.
He added that the memorandum agreed between Finland, Sweden and Turkey is not a NATO document.
“We welcome the document, we hope it will facilitate the negotiations and therefore we welcome for example the fact that in the text Finland and Sweden agreed to thoroughly discuss Turkey’s requests for pending deportations or extraditions of suspected terrorists,” he stressed.
He reiterated that Turkey is the ally that has suffered the most from terrorist attacks, adding that other NATO members have also suffered from terrorist attacks.
What each of the allies or invitees Finland and Sweden will do will be based on their own legislation and the rule of law in their countries. This is how democracies and NATO allies work,” said Jens Stoltenberg
Swedish Foreign Minister: Regarding the extradition request we will follow the normal way in our legislation
The Minister of Foreign Affairs of Sweden Ann Linde answered the same question that “in the memorandum we assured Turkey that we will take seriously the fight against terrorism and regarding the request for extraditions we will follow the normal path in our legislation. At the end of the day it is the Supreme Court that makes the decisions and that has been the case in past years and will continue to be the case this year, but we will of course have more cooperation in getting information and so on.”
Finnish Foreign Minister: Finland is not a safe haven for terrorism
For his part, Finnish Foreign Minister Peeka Haavisto stressed that “Finland is not some kind of safe haven for terrorism and we don’t want to be in the future.”
“We have tightened our legislation, this tightening is mentioned in the memorandum and it is important”, he added.
Finally, he emphasized that “in this process, in this mechanism we are creating, we can receive additional information. We are happy to exchange information. Then we might be able to fight terrorism more effectively. But we follow the normal legal procedures in these matters.”
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