Finland is set to join NATO on Tuesday, days after Turkey ratified the Nordic country's membership and set it on track to become the 31st member of the world's biggest military alliance.
All NATO members must vote unanimously to admit a new country into the alliance.
"This is an historic week," NATO Secretary-General Jens Stoltenberg told reporters in Brussels Monday, on the eve of a meeting of the alliance's foreign ministers. The move, he said, will make "Finland safer and our alliance stronger."
The addition of Finland, which shares a 1,340 kilometre (832 mile) border with Russia, will more than double the size of NATO's border with Russia.
Only a few technical steps procedures remain before Finland can join NATO's ranks:
Turkey will on Tuesday hand its acceptance letter for Finland's accession to U.S. Secretary of State Antony Blinken at NATO headquarters in Brussels. The United States is the depositary, or safekeeper, of NATO under the alliance's 1949 founding treaty.
Stoltenberg will then invite Finland to present Blinken with its own acceptance document, signed by Foreign Minister Pekka Haavisto. Finnish President Sauli Niinist├╢ authorized Haavisto to sign the document.
Once Finland's membership acceptance document is handed over, the country will officially become a NATO member. A flag raising ceremony will be held at 1330 GMT (1530 CET) in Brussels on Tuesday.
Finland and neighboring Sweden jointly applied for NATO membership in May 2022. The countries, which have close cultural, economic and political ties, planned to enter the alliance simultaneously.
Sweden's bid, however, has stalled due to opposition from Turkey, whose president has said his country won't ratify membership before its disputes with Stockholm are resolved. The Turkish government has accused Sweden of being too soft on groups that it deems to be terror organizations.
Hungary's parliament also has yet to ratify Sweden's accession to NATO, and it remains unclear when it will do so. Stoltenberg said Monday that he hopes Sweden will join in coming months, before U.S. President Joe Biden and his NATO counterparts meet in Lithuania in July.
The Israeli military targeted a top Hezbollah figure in a strike on Beirut's southern suburbs on Friday, two security sources in Lebanon said, sharply escalating the year-long conflict between Israel and the Iran-backed group.
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Prime Minister Justin Trudeau tapped Treasury Board President Anita Anand to take on additional duties as Canada's minister of transport on Thursday.
Conservative Leader Pierre Poilievre and NDP Leader Jagmeet Singh got into a heated exchange in the House of Commons on Thursday, just minutes after Singh announced his party would not be supporting the Conservatives' first non-confidence motion against Prime Minister Justin Trudeau's government.
The head of Via Rail repeatedly told MPs a train delay over the Labour Day long weekend was an isolated incident, despite a similar event two years ago.
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A case involving stolen funds from a Saskatchewan business being used to purchase cryptocurrency will be heading back to the courts, thanks to a new decision by Saskatchewan's Court of Appeal.
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An Elgin County community is expected to double in size as plans for multiple residential developments loom. The Township of Southwold expects shovels in the ground as early as 2025.
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A growing group of brides and wedding photographers from across the province say they have been taken for tens of thousands of dollars by a Barrie, Ont. wedding photographer.
Ontario Provincial Police executed a search warrant in Walkerton.
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Standing up, speaking out, and showing solidarity — survivors and supporters gathered in the core to take back the night in Windsor. The city is just one of a growing list of communities that have declared intimate partner violence (IPV) an epidemic.
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In a rare move, the Greater Victoria School District Board of Education has been slapped with a ministerial order from the province requiring it to update a student safety plan – drawing concern around political posturing leading up to an election.
The Union of B.C. Municipalities is asking the provincial government to make transit free for teenagers.
To appreciate why Mimi Vandermolen is so pleased to notice one particular vehicle she’s walking past, you need to know that seeing this many cars in one place would have been unimaginable when she was growing-up in the post-war Netherlands.
A pair of runaway pigs are in the custody of an animal sanctuary in the Okanagan after evading police and volunteers for hours earlier this week.
The Red Bridge, a historic landmark in Kamloops, B.C., was completely destroyed by fire early Thursday morning.
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A Vulcan, Alta., man has been charged with a Lethbridge woman's murder after her body was found in the Oyen area.
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Lethbridge residents who live near the police range can expect to hear plenty of shots fired Wednesday and Thursday.
A new community health profile in the Algoma District shows the area is significantly below provincial averages in a number of health metrics.
North Bay Police Service says one person has died following an industrial accident at the Ontario Northland Transportation Commission Rail Yard on Tuesday.
Three northern Ontario residents are charged with drug trafficking after the vehicle they were in got stuck along a bush road off Highway 17 on Monday.
Newfoundland and Labrador's chief medical officer is monitoring the rise of whooping cough infections across the province as cases of the highly contagious disease continue to grow across Canada.
A 16-year-old biennial event aimed at fostering business in the country's eastern Arctic and northern regions has been cancelled indefinitely as a dispute unfolds between Inuit in Canada and a Labrador group claiming to share their heritage.
Jim Lester’s farm hopped on the cow-cuddling trend in early August, and his time slots have been pretty well sold out ever since.
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