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NATO leader says Turkey has agreed to support Finland and Sweden joining alliance | CBC News

NATO leader says Turkey has agreed to support Finland and Sweden joining alliance | CBC News

NATO leader says Turkey has agreed to support Finland and Sweden joining alliance | CBC News
Jun 28, 2022 1 min, 34 secs

Turkey agreed Tuesday to lift its opposition to Sweden and Finland joining NATO, a breakthrough in an impasse clouding a leaders' summit in Madrid amid Europe's worst security crisis in decades triggered by the war in Ukraine.

After urgent top-level talks, alliance Secretary General Jens Stoltenberg said "we now have an agreement that paves the way for Finland and Sweden to join NATO.".

Russia's invasion of Ukraine has prompted Sweden and Finland to abandon their long-held nonaligned status and apply to join NATO.

Finnish President Sauli Niinisto said the three countries' leaders signed a joint agreement after talks on Tuesday.

President Joe Biden and other NATO leaders arrived in Madrid for a summit that will set the course of the alliance for the coming years.

"To be able to defend in a more dangerous world we have to invest more in our defence," Stoltenberg said.

"Ukraine now faces a brutality which we haven't seen in Europe since the Second World War," Stoltenberg said.

Diplomats and leaders from Turkey, Sweden and Finland earlier held a flurry of talks in an attempt to break the impasse over Turkey's opposition to expansion.

The three countries' leaders met for more than two hours alongside Stoltenberg on Tuesday before the agreement was announced.

LISTEN | Why Turkey is objecting to Sweden and Finland joining NATO:.

Turkey has demanded that Finland and Sweden extradite wanted individuals and lift arms restrictions imposed after Turkey's 2019 military incursion into northeast Syria.

Stoltenberg said Monday that NATO allies will agree at the summit to increase the strength of the alliance's rapid reaction force nearly eightfold, from 40,000 to 300,000 troops.

The agency said NATO was set to declare Russia an enemy at the summit, adding that it was publishing precise co-ordinates "just in case.".

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