Photo: Scott Olson / Getty Images
For: EFE Updated 18 May 2022, 13: 26 pm EDT
The president of the United States, Joe Biden, promised this Wednesday to work to achieve a “rapid” entry in NATO of Finland and Sweden, after those countries presented their requests to join the Alliance.
“I warmly welcome and strongly support the historic requests NATO membership of Finland and Sweden,” Biden said in a statement.
“I will work with the US Congress and our allies in NATO to rapidly integrate Finland and Sweden into the strongest defensive alliance in history,” he added.
Biden spoke like this hours after the ambassadors of Sweden and Finland to NATO will submit their applications to join the Alliance at the headquarters of the transatlantic organization, in Brussels.
The ma The US president will receive the Swedish Prime Minister, Magdalena Andersson, and the Finnish President, Sauli Niinistö, in Washington this Thursday to address their applications for admission and the process to process them.
Biden believed that the entry into NATO of these two Nordic countries “will strengthen the defense cooperation” of the allies and “will benefit the transatlantic alliance as a whole”, especially in the Baltic Sea region.
“While your applications for entry into the NATO, The United States will work with Finland and Sweden to remain vigilant against any threat to our shared security, and to deter or confront aggression or threats of aggression,” Biden stressed.
The US Congress must ratify any NATO expansion plans, and Senate Republican Minority Leader Mitch McConnell , expressed his intention on Monday that this process, which requires a two-thirds majority in the upper house, proceed quickly.
“We hope to get it done before the August recess, when Congress usually suspends its sessions”, McConnell said in statements to the press during a visit to Helsinki.
The requests from Sweden and Finland have aroused strong opposition from Turkey, a NATO member which accuses those countries to support Kurdish terrorists.
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