France calls on Turkey, Hungary to deliver on Sweden NATO bid
by AFP Staff Writers
Helsinki (AFP) Sept 28, 2023

France urged Turkey and Hungary on Thursday to come through on Sweden's stalled bid to join NATO.

Hungary and Turkey in July lifted their vetoes against Sweden's entry into the Atlantic alliance, but have been slow to ratify its membership.

"We would like to see Sweden in NATO and we would like to see Turkey and Hungary delivering on what they agreed," French Foreign Minister Catherine Colonna told reporters in Helsinki.

Hungarian Prime Minister Viktor Orban this week said that ratifying Sweden's NATO bid was not "urgent", accusing the Nordic country of having challenged the country's "democratic nature".

For his part, Turkish President Recep Tayyip Erdogan indicated in July that ratification by the Turkish parliament would not take place before October.

For months, Erdogan has been putting pressure on Sweden to take action against the Koran desecrations that have strained relations between the two countries.

Finland became NATO's 31st member country in April, after three decades of military non-alignment and in the midst of the war in Ukraine.

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