Finland To Join NATO Today — U.S. Ambassador Julianne Smith

Türkiye and Finland will today officially deposit their instrument of ratification on Finland's NATO accession by handing over the original documents to U.S. Secretary of State Antony Blinken in Brussels, a move that will finalize the Nordic country's membership process, TURAN's Washington correspondent reports.

Traditionally, after each individual NATO Ally completes the ratification process, the country in question then deposits the accession protocol in Washington at the State Department.

But in order to complete Finland's membership process today, the allies decided to change the depositing tradition from Washington to Brussels, as U.S, Permanent Representative to NATO Julianne Smith explained it to TURAN's Washington correspondent on Monday.

"We will celebrate with a ceremony here in Brussels... And that will be the key opportunity for Allies to come together and celebrate," she said.

Ambassador Smith was speaking to reporters during a special briefing organized by the State Department's Brussels Media Hub to preview NATO Foreign Ministerial, which is taking place in Brussels today.

TURAN's correspondent asked her about Sweden's prospects to join NATO, as the process was stalled by Turkey and Hungary.

Ankara's concerns were related to "the ways in which those two countries address the challenge of terrorism," as Ambassador Smith put it.  "... I think it’s clear now that certainly Finland has addressed some of the concerns that Türkiye has raised, and I suspect we’re going to see movement on Sweden in the not-too-distant future, so we’re quite optimistic on that front."

She went on to add, "As is usually the case, we can work through these types of differences and concerns and get to the right outcome, which is getting these two countries to become full-fledged members of the Alliance."

As for Hungary, the Ambassador said, it is "a little bit more private in some of the conversations that it is having with both aspirant countries."

"Any time a country has a reason to raise its hand and slow down a process for any reason, we encourage the countries in question to have a dialogue and engage."

Asked by TURAN's correspondent about Ukraine and whether it was certain now that the Russian offensive in Donbas has failed, Ambassador Smith said, it's "clear" that the Russian's have not been able to have any major victories on the battlefield.

"We’ll see what the future holds. But we do expect the Ukrainians to put forward or begin some sort of their own spring offensive in the weeks ahead," she said,

"We’re really leaving that in the hands of the Ukrainians, to map out not only the timeline for that spring offensive, but the specific tactics as well.  But it does appear that Russia right now doesn’t have anything specific to point to in terms of major victories on the battlefield," she concluded.

Alex Raufoglu