Global

Finland has officially joined the NATO military alliance after handing over the instrument of accession in a ceremony at the NATO headquarters in Brussels on Tuesday (4 April). Finland has therefore become the 31st member of the bloc, and in doing so has doubled the length of NATO's border with Russia. Previously, the only NATO member states who shared a border with Russia were Norway, Estonia, Latvia, Lithuania and Poland. "It’s a great day for Finland and an important day for Nato,” said Finland’s president, Sauli Niinistö. "Russia tried to create a sphere around them and … we’re not a sphere. I’m sure Finns themselves feel more secure that we are living in a more stable world." The NATO Secretary General Jens Stoltenberg said, "This will make Finland safer and NATO stronger...President Putin had a declared goal of the invasion of Ukraine to get less Nato along its borders and no more membership in Europe, he's getting exactly the opposite." Finland and their nordic neighbour Sweden both abandoned decades of military non-alignment to apply for NATO after Russia launched its full-scale invasion of Ukraine in February 2022. With an active force of about 30,000, and able to call on 250,000 reserves, Finland has a well-equipped and trained armed forces.

4 April is marked each year as the International Day for Mine Awareness and Assistance in Mine Action by the United Nations and countries, organisations and communities across the world. This year, the theme is “Mine action cannot wait”. This is a particularly poignant theme in the South Caucasus where the problem of landmines is acute and the region is now identified as being amongst the ones with the highest contamination of landmines in the world. The campaign Landmine Free South Caucasus joins the international community to mark this year’s International Day for Mine Awareness and Assistance in Mine Action. In particular, we raise our voice with that of the rest of the international community in saying that “Mine action cannot wait”. Since 2018, the campaign Landmine Free South Caucasus has worked with partners in Armenia, Azerbaijan and Georgia to raise awareness on the issue of landmines across the region, to highlight the good work being done by deminers at considerable personal risk, and to focus on the impact of landmines on victims and their communities.

Finland is set to become the 31st member of the North Atlantic Treaty Organization (NATO) military alliance after approving its membership in a parliamentary vote late on Thursday (30 March). After months of stalling over claims that Finland, along with its nordic neighbour Sweden, were supporting Kurdish "terrorists", the Turkish parliament finally approved Finland's membership in a vote of 276 MPs voting for, and 0 voting against. While Finland will now be formally admitted into the military alliance at its next summit in July in Lithuania, Sweden's membership bid, which was submitted at the same time as Finland's, is still being held up by Ankara and Budapest. In a statement following the Turkish vote, the Finnish government said joining the alliance would strengthen the country's security, and improve stability and security in the region. Meanwhile the Finnish Prime Minister Sanna Marin tweeted, "as allies, we will give and receive security. We will defend each other. Finland stands with Sweden now and in the future and supports its application."

On Tuesday (28 March) it was announced that Kazakh and Chinese business leaders signed 16 different documents strengthening bilateral relations. The agreements were signed on the sidelines of the "Second friendly dialogue of cross-border cooperation between the Republic of Kazakhstan and the Xinjiang Uygur Autonomous Region (XUAR) of the People's Republic of China". The documents included six interregional agreements, five memoranda of understanding, and five commercial agreements totalling a value of $565m. The agreements cover the sectors of construction, energy, mining, agriculture, food industry, engineering, tourism, investment, and others. The forum was held alongside a visit of the Political Bureau of the Central Committee of the Chinese Communist Party and Communist Party Secretary of XUAR, Ma Xingrui, to Kazakhstan. At the meeting, Chinese and Kazakh officials and entrepreneurs discussed ways to improve the efficiency of checkpoints, logistics centers, and transport infrastructure along the almost 1,800km-long border. Speaking at the event, the Kazakh Deputy Prime Minister and Minister of Trade and Integration Serik Zhumangarin said Kazakhstan is ready to export some 135 industrial and agricultural products worth over $1 billion to China.

Over 10 months after Finland applied to join the NATO military alliance, the Hungarian Parliament has ratified Finland's application to the currently 30-member bloc in a vote on Monday (27 March). The vote was passed by 182 votes for and only 6 votes against. In order to become a NATO member, an applicant country must be approved by every member state individually, and following Hungary's approval yesterday only one country remains, Turkey. Turkey's approval of Finland's application to NATO is indeed expected soon as the country after the country's parliamentary committee on foreign affairs approved their application last week. A parliamentary vote on accession is expected before the country's presidential elections on 14 May. Yesterday's vote comes after months of delay in both Budapest and Ankara over Finland and Sweden's NATO membership prospects. While Hungarian officials had spent months insisting that they simply busy with other business, at the end of last month the Hungarian Prime Minister Viktor Orbán threatened to throw a spanner in the works over Finland and Sweden's history of open criticism of rule-of-law in Hungary.