The Foreign Affairs Committee of the Turkish Parliament has approved a bill ratifying Finland’s request to join NATOThis was reported by the state television company TRT Haber.

The bill must also be approved at the plenary session of the National Assembly.

Last week the President of Turkey Recep Tayyip Erdogan announced that Finland’s NATO membership would be ratified, but not Sweden’s.

Speaking then at a joint press conference with Finnish President Sauli Niinistö, who visited Ankara, Tayyip Erdogan said that “based on the progress made in the implementation of the protocol for Finland’s accession to NATO, we decided to start the process of ratification in Parliament.”

The Turkish president was referring to the memorandum of understanding signed last June by the two Scandinavian states with Turkey to assuage Turkey’s fears of being prosecuted for “terrorism”.

Unlike Finland, Erdogan said that Sweden “opened its arms to terrorists.”and that his future NATO membership will depend solely on his behavior.

According to APE-MPE and Reuters