Finnish President Sauli Niinistö will arrive in Turkey on Thursday and visit the quake-hit southeast, before meeting with Turkish President Recep Tayyip Erdoğan on Friday.
The pair will discuss all aspects of the relationship between Turkey and Finland, as well as the latter’s appeal to join NATO, Erdoğan’s office said in a statement.
Niinistö is expecting to receive Turkey’s declaration of intentions to approve his country’s NATO bid, following Erdoğan’s invitation.
“The Turks have hoped that I will be there to confirm the answer when they announce this decision,” the Finnish president said in a statement.
Turkey and Hungary are the only remaining NATO member states that haven’t approved the appeals of Finland and Sweden, who both applied to join the alliance last year after Russia’s invasion of Ukraine. Ankara has repeatedly voiced security concerns over Sweden’s bid in particular, as the country stood its ground against Turkey’s demands to repatriate asylum seekers and Swedish citizens it considers to be terrorists.
Hungarian Prime Minister Viktor Orbán is also in Turkey, having arrived on Wednesday for an Organisation of Turkic States summit in capital Ankara, his office announced. Orbán will have a one-on-one meeting with Erdoğan today.
On Wednesday, Erdoğan told reporters that the process would continue and his government would “do what befalls us and keep our word”.
“We will meet with [Niinistö] and fulfil the requirements of the promise we made,” Erdoğan said.
