ANKARA, March 15. /TASS/. Turkish President Recep Tayyip Erdogan hinted that Turkey may approve Finland’s NATO membership application soon.

"The President of Finland will arrive on Friday, we will meet and we will do what we promised to do. I hope this will be the case," he told reporters after the meeting in the parliament, answering a question if the parliament will review the bill on Helsinki’s NATO membership application next week and if it will be approved.

The President of Finland Sauli Niinisto will make a working visit to Turkey on March 16-17, Erdogan’s Administration announced earlier. The visit will focus on Helsinki’s accession to the alliance within the context of implementation of the trilateral memorandum, signed on the sidelines of the NATO summit in Madrid.

Finland and Sweden filed their applications for NATO membership in May 2022, but the process was blocked by Turkey, who demanded that the two countries declared Kurdish organizations terrorist and extradited people, accused of terrorism or involvement in the 2016 coup attempt.

Ankara believes that Finland mostly fulfills its obligations under the memorandum. However, serious complaints remain to Sweden: Turkey believes that Sweden is not ready to join NATO, because it has not fulfilled its obligations under the memorandum.

Earlier, Reuters reported citing two Turkish officials that the Turkish Parliament is likely to ratify Finland’s membership application before the parliament shuts down for elections in mid-April. Finland’s application is expected to be reviewed separately from the Swedish one.