Brussels, 4 April 2023 (dpa/MIA) — Finland is officially a member of NATO after Finnish Foreign Minister Pekka Haavisto deposited accession papers with the United States on Tuesday in Brussels.

 

Finland becomes the 31st member of the defence alliance after overcoming opposition from Turkey. This is a "historic day," NATO Secretary General Jens Stotlenberg said.

 

Article 5 of the NATO treaty, a powerful collective security guarantee, now applies to Finland. An attack on one member of the alliance is an attack on all allies.

 

The Finnish flag is to be hoisted in front of NATO headquarters, alphabetically placed between the flags of Estonia and France. Finland then participates for the first time in a NATO foreign ministers' meeting as a full-fledged member.

 

Finland applied together with Sweden for NATO membership in May 2022 in the aftermath of the Russian invasion of Ukraine, but its application got tangled up in Ankara's opposition to Sweden's entry.

 

All NATO members must unanimously agree to admit new members. After months of talks brokered by the alliance, Turkey eventually relented and voted last week to admit Finland into NATO.

 

The decision ends Finland's decades-long neutral status amid perceived security risks due to Russia's full-scale invasion of Ukraine.

 

The Nordic country shares a 1,340-kilometre-long border with Russia.

 

NATO completed the final formalities to admit Finland after Turkey deposited ratification papers with the United States Secretary of State Antony Blinken.

 

After Turkey deposited the membership ratification with Washington, Stoltenberg issued an invitation letter to Finland to join the alliance.

 

Helsinki gave its acceptance of NATO's invitation to join the alliance to Washington and completed the process.

 

Moscow reacted with fury. "The expansion of NATO is an attack on our security and Russia's national interests," Kremlin spokesman Dmitry Peskov said, according to the Interfax news agency on Tuesday.

 

Russia would be forced to take countermeasures accordingly, he said.

 

Peskov rejected the thesis that Finland's NATO accession was tantamount to Ukraine's accession to group, which Russia has feared.

 

"The situation with Finland is fundamentally different from the situation with Ukraine," Peskov said.

 

Finland had never been "anti-Russia" and has not had a dispute with Moscow. "The situation in Ukraine is exactly the opposite and potentially much more dangerous," he said.

 

Blinken said the Russian invasion of Ukraine brought about Finland's entry to NATO, something Russian President Vladimir Putin had tried to prevent, in comments before the ceremony.

 

Ukrainian Foreign Minister Dmytro Kuleba said Finland's entry to NATO shows the need for the alliance to "revise all strategies," in a push for his own country's future membership.

 

Congratulating Finland on their accession, Kuleba said the solution to ensuring the security of the alliance was the "eventual membership of Ukraine in NATO."

 

Sweden's membership is still pending Turkish ratification due to a number of sticking points, among them Ankara's concerns over what it says is a lack of cooperation in fighting terrorism.

 

Among other things, Turkey continues to block Swedish accession on the grounds that Sweden refuses to extradite 120 people viewed by Ankara as terrorists.

 

Hungary, like Turkey, has also not yet ratified Sweden's NATO membership. In a government statement, Hungary cited "an ample amount of grievances" with Sweden over EU budget funds, among other things.

 

In what he described as Finland's first act as a member of NATO, Haavisto gave his country's ratification papers of Sweden's NATO membership to Blinken at the end of the ceremony.