Finland is about to hitch NATO if it will get the final excellent ratifications for its membership bid, no matter what progress Sweden has made towards becoming a member of the alliance, President Sauli Niinisto stated on Wednesday.

Finland’s parliament has moved forward with a home course of to ratify the Nordic nation’s accession to NATO, elevating questions on whether or not the 2 international locations might be admitted into the North Atlantic Treaty Organization at completely different instances. While they each utilized to hitch on the identical time, Turkey continues to pose an impediment to Sweden’s entry whereas it’s indicated it now not has an issue with Finland’s membership.

“Our parliament will make its decision, and if Turkey and Hungary ratify, we will become members of NATO,” Niinisto stated at a joint press convention with Sweden and Norway’s prime ministers. Finnish lawmakers are estimated to vote on the matter Feb. 28.

The remark is the most recent sign that Finland is getting ready to take the step into the alliance with out Sweden, its neighbor and shut ally whose membership bid has been held up by Turkish resistance. Niinisto insisted that his assertion shouldn’t be seen as Finland leaving its neighbor behind.

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“To the extent it is up to us, we will go hand in hand, but Turkey has the ratification in its own hands and we can’t do anything about that,” the president stated. “If Turkey and Hungary ratify, and our parliament accepts the legislation, we will become members.”

The Nordic international locations’ talks with Turkey will resume inside a couple of weeks, Niinisto stated, including that he’s “optimistic” that each can have change into members by the alliance’s mid-July summit in Vilnius. The subsequent try to interrupt the impasse is deliberate happen at NATO’s headquarters in Brussels.

Lawmakers in Hungary will begin debating NATO enlargement on March 1, based on a schedule posted on its web site on Wednesday that additionally sees a vote going down within the week of March 6. While the japanese European nation has made no calls for in trade for the ratification, its timelines have shifted a number of instances.

Swedish Prime Minister Ulf Kristersson continued to press the case for a simultaneous entry, saying it will be useful for defenses.

“It’s well known that we have a very close military relationship outside of NATO and that was one of the reasons why we embarked on this journey together,” Kristersson stated on the press convention at Harpsund, southwest of Stockholm. “Things could get complicated if one of the countries remains outside while the other joins — that is just a statement of facts.”