President Joe Biden signed ratification documents Tuesday bringing Finland and Sweden one step closer to joining the NATO alliance.<\/p>\n\n\n\n
\u2033[Russian President Vladimir] Putin thought he could break us apart,\u201d Biden said from the East Room of the White House. \u201cOur alliance is closer than ever, it is more united than ever, and after Finland and Sweden join we will be stronger than ever.\u201d<\/p>\n\n\n\n
Last week, the Senate voted 95 to 1 to ratify the entrance of Finland and Sweden into the world\u2019s most powerful military alliance.<\/p>\n\n\n\n
In May, both nations began the formal process of applying to NATO amid the backdrop of Russia\u2019s war in Ukraine. Moscow, long wary of NATO expansion, has opposed the two nations\u2019 plans to join the alliance.<\/p>\n\n\n\n
Both Finland and Sweden already meet many of the requirements to be NATO members. Some of the requirements include having a functioning democratic political system, a willingness to provide economic transparency and the ability to make military contributions to NATO missions.<\/p>\n\n\n\n
\u201cThey will meet every NATO requirement, we are confident of that,\u201d Biden said before signing the documents.<\/p>\n\n\n\n
Earlier this year, Biden welcomed leaders from both countries to the White House and pledged to work with the Senate \u2014 which has to sign off on U.S. approval of NATO bids \u2014 and the other 29 members of the alliance to swiftly bring Sweden and Finland into the group.<\/p>\n\n\n\n
At the time Biden, flanked by Finnish President Sauli Niinisto and Swedish Prime Minister Magdalena Andersson, said the two countries would \u201cmake NATO stronger.\u201d He called their moves to join the pact a \u201cvictory for democracy.\u201d<\/p>\n\n\n\n
After Biden\u2019s signature, the governments of the Czech Republic, Greece, Hungary, Portugal, Slovakia, Spain and Turkey will still need to sign the instruments of ratification.<\/p>\n\n\n\n
\u201cI urge the remaining allies to complete the ratification process as quickly as possible,\u201d Biden said, a development that must occur by the end of September. \u201cThe United States is committed to the transatlantic alliance. We are going to write the future we want to see.\u201d<\/p>\n\n\n\n
In June, NATO Secretary General Jens Stoltenberg said the leaders of the alliance had reached a deal to admit Finland and Sweden after resolving the concerns of holdout Turkey.<\/p>\n\n\n\n
Previously, Turkish President Recep Tayyip Erdogan said he would not approve the applications, citing their support for Kurdish organizations that Turkey considers security threats.<\/p>\n\n\n\n
During a NATO summit in Madrid, the foreign ministers of Finland, Sweden and Turkey signed a memorandum to confirm that Turkey will back the new NATO bids.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"
President Joe Biden signed ratification documents Tuesday bringing Finland and Sweden one step closer to joining the NATO alliance. \u2033[Russian President Vladimir] Putin thought he could break us apart,\u201d Biden said from the East Room of the White House. \u201cOur alliance is closer than ever, it is more united than ever, and after Finland and …<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":1228,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[1],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-1227","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","hentry","category-news"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/polise.az\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/1227","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/polise.az\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/polise.az\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/polise.az\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/polise.az\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=1227"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/polise.az\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/1227\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/polise.az\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/1228"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/polise.az\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=1227"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/polise.az\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=1227"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/polise.az\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=1227"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}