A small ceremony in the White House on Thursday was intended to make the historic dimension of the event clear: President Joe Biden received Sweden's Prime Minister Magdalena Andersson and Finnish President Sauli Niinistö to underline how much he approves of the two countries' bids for NATO membership .

Biden said he was proud that both countries have America's full support.

He assured that the application would be brought quickly through the Senate.

Two proudly independent countries have decided to join the strongest alliance in history.

Majid Sattar

Political correspondent for North America based in Washington.

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Finland's president thanked Biden.

When he was in the White House in March, he encouraged him to take this step.

Sweden's Andersson said it was a historic moment for Sweden after 200 years without the kingdom belonging to any alliance.

In these "dark times" the transatlantic alliance showed unity.

Turkish concerns

Biden released a statement on Wednesday not only emphasizing that he would rush to work with Congress and NATO partners to include both countries in "the strongest defense alliance in history."

His statement also included an indication of the status of the two candidates during the transition period: During the bid period, the United States would work with Finland and Sweden to "remain vigilant" against "any threat" to common security and to "deter attacks or threats of attack." and to oppose".

The National Security Council must have worked on this formulation for a long time.

It is a message to Russia and represents nothing less than a security guarantee from Washington for the time when

Biden had shown confidence on Wednesday that this would happen.

With regard to the Turkish resistance to the admission of Finland and Sweden, he had indicated that he believed a solution would be found.

Jake Sullivan, the National Security Advisor, was also optimistic.

"We are confident that Finland and Sweden will eventually have an effective and efficient accession process that can address Turkey's concerns," he said at the White House.

Helsinki and Stockholm "worked directly with Turkey to achieve this, but we are also talking to the Turks to try to facilitate the process".

He referred to a conversation between Foreign Minister Antony Blinken and his Turkish colleague Mevlut Cavusoglu.

After the talks with Blinken at the United Nations on Wednesday in New York, Cavusoglu himself emphasized that there was still no agreement.

Cavusoglu told Turkish journalists after the meeting that he had made Turkey's position on the northern expansion of the military alliance clear once again.

Basically, he rated the conversation with Blinken as "extremely positive".

Blinken said Turkey's concerns were legitimate.

Sweden and Finland had officially applied for admission to the defense alliance shortly before the NATO Council meeting on Wednesday morning, but Ankara blocked the start of the process for the time being.

Turkish President Recep Tayyip Erdogan has made it clear several times before that he does not want to agree to Finland and Sweden joining.

He always justified his position with the fact that both countries supported the Kurdish Workers' Party PKK and the Kurdish militia YPG in Syria.

Turkey sees the YPG as the Syrian offshoot of the PKK, which is considered a terrorist organization in Turkey, Europe and the United States.