MOSCOW, March 16. /TASS/. There has never been any bad blood between Russia and the Scandinavian countries of Sweden and Finland, but their wish to join NATO can only be viewed with the greatest disappointment, Presidential Spokesman Dmitry Peskov said on Thursday.
"We have repeatedly expressed regret in regard to Finland and Sweden wanting to join the alliance. We have repeatedly said that Russia does not pose a threat to these countries in any way, because we do not have any bad blood with these countries, and these countries have never expressed an intention to become anti-Russian. They did not pose a threat to us, and, accordingly, there was no threat from us to them. Therefore, we can only express regret here," he told the media, when asked about the Kremlin’s reaction to Turkey's announced support for Finland's NATO membership bid.
Peskov stressed that Turkey was a member of the alliance.
"It has its own policy on this and its own issues inside NATO. They are addressing them," Peskov concluded.
On March 15, Finnish President Sauli Niinisto said on his Twitter page that his Turkish counterpart, Recep Tayyip Erdogan, would announce at a meeting between the two set for Friday in Ankara that Finland's application for NATO membership had been approved. On Wednesday, the Turkish leader told the media that Ankara may soon approve Finland's application to join NATO.
Finland and Sweden applied for admission to the North Atlantic Alliance in May 2022. Ankara put the accession process on hold, demanding that both countries declare Kurdish organizations terrorist, as well as extradite persons accused of terrorism or participating in the 2016 government coup attempt in Turkey.