Turkey's NATO obstinance threatens more than Nordic membership
From the vantage point of the West, giving in to Ankara’s demands from Finland and Sweden amounts to letting an autocrat design the security architecture of Europe.
US President Joe Biden’s announcement of his country’s unequivocal support of Finland and Sweden’s NATO membership bids came as a veiled rebuke of Ankara.
Flanked by Finland’s President Sauli Niinisto and Sweden’s Prime Minister Magdalena Andersson, Biden declared both nations have the "full, total, complete backing" of his country after a trilateral meeting at the White House on May 19.
Biden said both countries were “highly capable partners to join the strongest, most powerful defensive alliance in the history of the world,” adding, "The bottom line is simple, quite straightforward: Finland and Sweden make NATO stronger. Not just because of their capacity but because of their strong, strong democracies.”
Describing Finland and Sweden’s decision to abandon their decades-old neutrality as “historic,” Biden’s strongly worded statement also obliquely rebuked Turkey.
