Hungarian Prime Minister Viktor Orban said Thursday that Hungary supports Sweden and Finland joining NATO and that the parliament will formally ratify their memberships early next year.
“As we have already informed Sweden and Finland, Hungary supports the NATO membership of these two countries. It will be on the agenda of the first session of parliament” next year, Orban told reporters in Slovakia, according to AFP.
So far, the legislatures of 28 out of 30 NATO members have signed off on the two Nordic nations joining the alliance, with only Hungary and Turkey holding out.
Orban’s government submitted the legislation to the parliament back in July, but it was never brought to a vote. Hungary’s parliament is set to hold its first session of 2023 in February, and that’s when Orban expects the memberships to be approved.
Orban has been at odds with the rest of the EU over sanctions on Russia and joint aid to Ukraine. The EU blocked funding to the Hungarian government after he won reelection over allegations of corruption. Orban’s chief of staff has previously said this issue needs to be worked out before parliament can discuss Sweden and Finland’s NATO bids.
Turkey has said that it won’t approve of the Nordic nations joining NATO if they don’t live up to a deal signed back in June. Ankara’s main concern is Sweden and Finland’s alleged support for Kurdish militants, and Turkey has launched a major operation against Kurds in northern Syria, which could further complicate the NATO process.
Who really cares if more GNOMES talk about joining our even envision joining. Russia could cause them terrible headaches by saying it’s O.K. but forces Russia to put a few hypersonics aimed at Helsinki on a “launch on any threat of any launch” status, so that any glitch, malfunction, false flag event or any act of war by any NATO member state, means good bye to Helsinki….. It would be very interesting to see how the Fins would react or answer such a declaration. Not joyfully one would think…..!!!!!! “Just saying”…….
Tell me again what would be the advantage of using a hypersonic missile against Helsinki??? The distance to Helsinki is so small that the travelling time would be nearly the same for any missile so why waste such a weapon?
The Finns have lived with this threat since 1945 – hypersonic missiles does not change anything at all for them – they were incapable of stopping a ballistic missile just as much as a hypersonic one – and the idea that any provocation or any misinterpretation of a threat should produce nuclear Armageddon – is it that you think the Russians are in love with playing Russian roulette?
Well yeah. They will get nuked if they are dumb enough to hold American nukes but main targets for Russian nuclear strike are Washington and London.
Orban confuses and disappoints. He clearly knows that joining NATO is an abdication of sovereignty even greater than EU membership. “Non-aligned” should be his position. So I guess he’s no Tito.
Hungary’s vote is irrelevant now,
Turkey needs this time to get to the bottom of Kyrdish problem, an armed secessionist movement supported by NATO for a long, long time. Since there are millions of Kurds living in Turkey outside Kurdish militants dominated areas — and are not discriminated against. PKK militancy is political — with arms and political cover from NATO.
This act of terrorism cannot go only half way, as it did during Trump administration in Syria.
Trump pulled US military from Kurdish areas, but Kurds struck a deal with Damascus to turn over all Kurdish controlled areas under Damascus control. The purpose was to prevent any further Turkish incursion.
Now, Kurds have nobody to turn to. If US does not
protect them, Syrian government will not just take their word — as they lied before.
This time US controlled outfits in Syria and Iraq will be targeted, Kurds guarding US occupied oil wells were hit by Turkey. The question is -/ how will US respond?
Future membership of NATO depends on it.