'Time is now' to let Finland, Sweden join NATO: Stoltenberg

Brussels [Belgium], March 1: NATO Secretary General Jens Stoltenberg on Tuesday reiterated his call for Turkey and Hungary to let Finland and Sweden join the Western military alliance.
"The time is now to ratify and to fully welcome both Finland and Sweden as members," Stoltenberg said in Helsinki, speaking alongside Finnish Prime Minister Sanna Marin.
Stoltenberg said progress had been made with Turkey and a meeting of representatives from Ankara, Stockholm and Helsinki is to take place in Brussels next week.
The two Nordic nations applied to join the defence alliance in May, following Russia's invasion of Ukraine.
However, accessions must be ratified by all allies and Turkey has been blocking the process for several months and demanding legislative changes over allegations that Sweden sympathizes with and harbours what Turkey views as Kurdish terrorists.
Stoltenberg said that both NATO aspirants had met the conditions laid out in an agreement reached with Ankara last summer.
The Nordic countries would already be "in a much better place now than before they applied," he said, as "it's inconceivable that there will be any threat against Finland or Sweden without NATO reacting." Finland shares a more than 1,300 kilometre long border with Russia.
The country declared independence from Russian rule in 1917 and fought against Soviet troops during World War II.
Marin said the reason why Finland decided to apply for NATO membership was that the alliance's border "is the only line that Russia wouldn't cross." She said that she had hoped to be a member already, adding her country is waiting for the accession process to be finalised hopefully before the next NATO summit in Vilnius in July.
Marin pointed out that Hungary's parliament is yet to approve NATO's enlargement but Budapest has expressed support for the accession and has not put forward any demands. The parliament in Helsinki is also due to debate and vote on matter on Wednesday.
Speaking on Ukraine, Stoltenberg said that NATO members agreed that the country "will become a member of our alliance" in the long run but that the current focus was on providing aid to Kiev in defending against Russia's invasion.
He said that "supporting Ukraine is not only the morally right thing to do, it is also in our own security interest," addressing a gathering of Nordic social democratic parties and trade union confederations in Helsinki.
"We do not know when this war will end, but when it does, we must ensure that history does not repeat itself," he added.
"We must break the cycle of Russian aggression, meaning we must enable Ukraine to deter and defend against future aggression," he noted.
Russia's invasion of Ukraine over a year ago permanently changed the alliance's relationship with Moscow.
"There is no going back," he said.
"We have to recognise that the end of this war will not be a return to normal in our relations with Russia," he noted.
"In this more dangerous world we can no longer afford to treat defence as optional, it is a necessity," Stoltenberg added.
He acknowledged that increasing defence budgets, as long called for by NATO, meant that less money would be available "for education, for infrastructure, for health" before adding that "nothing is more important than our security." Stoltenberg also urged allies to draw lessons from Europe's dependency on Russian gas and warned against becoming too dependent on China.
"We should not make the same mistake with China and other authoritarian regimes," he said. NATO members must not become too dependent on the import of products and raw materials or on the export of "key technologies that could be used against us."
Source: Qatar Tribune