NATO Secretary General Jens Stoltenberg said that Finland will be admitted to the alliance on April 4. Finland will become the 31st member of the North Atlantic Alliance and this «will make it safer and the alliance itself stronger.» Stoltenberg also clarified that all bureaucratic procedures related to the country's accession to NATO will be completed, and the flag of Finland will be raised at the alliance headquarters in Brussels for the first time. Earlier, all the states of the North Atlantic Alliance ratified the Helsinki application. Turkey and Hungary were the last to do so. Recall that NATO member states signed protocols on the accession of Finland and Sweden to the North Atlantic Council on July 5, 2022. Then Turkey blocked the accession process, demanding that both Scandinavian countries declare Kurdish organizations terrorist, extradite persons accused of terrorism, and lift bans on arms supplies to Ankara. However, in March of this year, Ankara announced that it was still ready to ratify the Finnish candidacy before the May presidential elections in Turkey. Nevertheless, in the case of Sweden, Turkey's objections to its membership in the North Atlantic Alliance remain in force.
