Turkey Drops Opposition to Sweden and Finland Joining NATO, Biden Approves F-16 Sales to Turkey

Quid-pro-Joe.

CTH:

In March of this year Finland President Sauli Niinistö traveled to the White House [link].  In April reports first surfaced of Finland and Sweden joining the NATO alliance [link].  In mid-May of this year President Sauli Niinistö stated his decision for his country to join NATO was a matter of needing to choose sides, “what we see now, Europe, the world, is more divided. There’s not very much room for ‘non-aligned,’ in-between. So that was also what we are thinking,” he said [link]

The next day, May 16th, Turkish President Recep Erdogan, a preexisting NATO member, said Turkey would block the application of Sweden and Finland from joining NATO until their conditions and terms were accepted [link].  Two days later, May 19th, Joe Biden, flanked by Finnish President Sauli Niinisto and Swedish Prime Minister Magdalena Andersson (again at the White House), said the two countries would “make NATO stronger.” more