The US Senate on Wednesday ratified the entry of Sweden and Finland into NATO, strongly backing the expansion of the transatlantic alliance in the face of Russia’s invasion of Ukraine.
The Senate voted 95 to one in favor of the two Nordic countries’ accession, making the US the 23rd of the 30 NATO countries to formally endorse their bids, after Italy approved it earlier that day and France on Tuesday.
US President Joe Biden hailed the Senate’s quick ratification process — the fastest since 1981.
Photo: AFP
“This historic vote sends an important signal of the sustained, bipartisan US commitment to NATO and to ensuring our Alliance is prepared to meet the challenges of today and tomorrow,” Biden said in a statement.
The sole opponent was US Senator Josh Hawley, who agreed that Washington should focus on protecting its homeland, but said it should concentrate on the challenge from China rather than Europe.
US Senator Rand Paul voted “present” rather than endorsing or opposing the motion.
Senate Majority Leader Chuck Schumer said it was a signal of Western unity after Moscow launched its war on Ukraine on Feb. 24.
“This is important substantively and as a signal to Russia. They cannot intimidate America or Europe,” Schumer said, adding that Russian President Vladimir “Putin has tried to use his war in Ukraine to divide the West.”
“Instead, today’s vote shows our alliance is stronger than ever,” he added.
All 30 NATO members must agree if Finland and Sweden, officially nonaligned, but longtime adjunct partners of the alliance, are admitted.
A NATO list showed that seven member countries have yet to formally agree to the new double entry: the Czech Republic, Greece, Hungary, Portugal, Slovakia, Spain and Turkey.
Only Turkey has raised a challenge, demanding certain concessions from Finland and Sweden to back their memberships.
Ankara has demanded the extradition of dozens of Turkish government opponents it labels “terrorists” from both countries in exchange for its support.
Turkey on July 21 said that a special committee would this month meet Finnish and Swedish officials to assess whether the two nations are complying with its conditions.
Chinese President Xi Jinping (習近平) is to visit Russia next month for a summit of the BRICS bloc of developing economies, Chinese Minister of Foreign Affairs Wang Yi (王毅) said on Thursday, a move that comes as Moscow and Beijing seek to counter the West’s global influence. Xi’s visit to Russia would be his second since the Kremlin sent troops into Ukraine in February 2022. China claims to take a neutral position in the conflict, but it has backed the Kremlin’s contentions that Russia’s action was provoked by the West, and it continues to supply key components needed by Moscow for
Japan scrambled fighter jets after Russian aircraft flew around the archipelago for the first time in five years, Tokyo said yesterday. From Thursday morning to afternoon, the Russian Tu-142 aircraft flew from the sea between Japan and South Korea toward the southern Okinawa region, the Japanese Ministry of Defense said in a statement. They then traveled north over the Pacific Ocean and finished their journey off the northern island of Hokkaido, it added. The planes did not enter Japanese airspace, but flew over an area subject to a territorial dispute between Japan and Russia, a ministry official said. “In response, we mobilized Air Self-Defense
CRITICISM: ‘One has to choose the lesser of two evils,’ Pope Francis said, as he criticized Trump’s anti-immigrant policies and Harris’ pro-choice position Pope Francis on Friday accused both former US president Donald Trump and US Vice President Kamala Harris of being “against life” as he returned to Rome from a 12-day tour of the Asia-Pacific region. The 87-year-old pontiff’s comments on the US presidential hopefuls came as he defied health concerns to connect with believers from the jungle of Papua New Guinea to the skyscrapers of Singapore. It was Francis’ longest trip in duration and distance since becoming head of the world’s nearly 1.4 billion Roman Catholics more than 11 years ago. Despite the marathon visit, he held a long and spirited
The pitch is a classic: A young celebrity with no climbing experience spends a year in hard training and scales Mount Everest, succeeding against some — if not all — odds. French YouTuber Ines Benazzouz, known as Inoxtag, brought the story to life with a two-hour-plus documentary about his year preparing for the ultimate challenge. The film, titled Kaizen, proved a smash hit on its release last weekend. Young fans queued around the block to get into a preview screening in Paris, with Inoxtag’s management on Monday saying the film had smashed the box office record for a special cinema