Hungarian Parliament approves Finland NATO membership
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.
patrickn97
Tue, 03/28/2023 - 09:14
Kyrgyzstan to host CSTO defence bloc drills
Anatoly Sidorov, the Chief of Staff of the Collective Security Treaty Organization (CSTO) has announced that Kyrgyzstan has volunteered to host the "Indestructible Brotherhood" drills later this year. A date for the drills was not given.
Speaking in a press briefing on Tuesday (14 February), Sidorov said, "the CSTO Indestructible Brotherhood drill is planned on the territory of Kyrgyzstan, where tasks of post-conflict regulation in crisis zone, peacekeeping operations will be practiced."
