Skip to main content
Finland's Left Alliance rejects deal with Turkey over Nato membership
From left to right: Finnish Foreign Minister Pekka Haavisto, Turkish Foreign Minister Mevlut Cavusoglu, Nato Secretary General Jens Stoltenberg, Turkish President Recep Tayyip Erdogan, Finland's President Sauli Niinisto, Sweden's Prime Minister Magdalena Andersson, and Sweden's Foreign Minister Ann Linde pose for a picture after signing a memorandum in which Turkey agrees to Finland and Sweden's membership of the defense alliance in Madrid, Spain on June 28, 2022

FINLAND’S Left Alliance has rejected an agreement signed by ministers with Turkey on Tuesday in return for approval of Helsinki’s Nato membership application, branding it a “political demonstration.”

Former education minister Jussi Saramo argued that the document “does not bind Finland to anything” as it has not been discussed by the parliament’s committee on foreign affairs. 

Turkey had vowed to block Finland and Sweden’s applications to join the military alliance on the grounds that both countries support what Ankara has described as “terrorism.”

The 95th Anniversary Appeal
Support the Morning Star
You have reached the free limit.
Subscribe to continue reading.
Similar stories
IRON HEEL: Police officers storm Turkey's main opposition Republican People's Party (CHP) headquarters in Ankara on Sunday
Features / 26 May 2026
26 May 2026

CLAUDIA WEBBE looks at how Britain’s Nato ally has upped the stakes in its effort to silence domestic dissenting voices

ETHNIC STRIFE: Women condemn, yesterday, a video in circulation that allegedly shows a fighter affiliated with the Syrian government holding the braid of a Kurdish female fighter after killing her, in Qamishli, northeastern Syria
Middle East / 23 January 2026
23 January 2026

VIJAY PRASHAD details how US support for Syrian President Ahmad al-Sharaa allowed him to break the resistance of the autonomous Syrian Democratic Forces (SDF)

President Donald Trump, center, speaks with NATO Secretary General Mark Rutte, left, during a group photo of NATO heads of state and government at the NATO summit in The Hague, Netherlands, Wednesday, June 25, 2025
War Economy / 8 July 2025
8 July 2025

In an address to the Communist Party’s executive at the weekend international secretary KEVAN NELSON explained why the communists’ watchwords must be Jobs not Bombs and Welfare not Warfare