Turkish President Recep Tayyip Erdogan
ended months of diplomatically charged delays on Friday and asked parliament
to quickly back Finland’s bid to join NATO.

A simultaneous decision by fellow holdout Hungary to schedule a Finnish
ratification vote for March 27 means the US-led defence alliance will likely
grow to 31 nations within a few months.

NATO’s expansion into a country with a 1,340-kilometre (830-mile) border with
Russia will roughly double the length of the bloc’s current frontier with its
Cold War-era foe.

Finland had initially aimed to join together with fellow NATO aspirant Sweden
— a Nordic power facing a litany of disputes with Turkey that ultimately
sunk its chance to join the bloc before an alliance summit in July.

Helsinki and Stockholm ended decades of military non-alignment and decided to
join the world’s most powerful defence alliance in the wake of Russia’s
invasion of Ukraine.dhngkfdvk