Despite objections from Türkiye, Sweden and Finland's premiers vowed to see the completion of their NATO applications together Thursday.

"We work together. We have been in close contact every day on this issue. Of course, we want both Türkiye and Hungary to approve our application as soon as possible," Finnish Prime Minister Sanna Marin said at a joint press conference as she became the first head of state to be received by her Swedish counterpart Ulf Kristersson since he took office last year.

The journey that has begun must continue "hand in hand," Marin told reporters in Stockholm.

As the security order in Europe has changed permanently because of the Russia-Ukraine war, Finland and Sweden's security is interconnected, she said. "Finland and Sweden have applied together, and it is in everyone's interest that we join NATO together."

Meanwhile, President Recep Tayyip Erdoğan has said he may allow Finland to join but has major reservations about Sweden becoming a member after a series of anti-Türkiye protests and Islamophobic incidents in the country.

"We have addressed the concerns expressed by Türkiye, as agreed in Madrid," Marin said on Thursday.

Most recently, a Danish-Swedish right-wing extremist Rasmus Paludan set Islam’s holy book Quran on fire in front of the Turkish embassy and again in front of a mosque in Stockholm, announcing he would repeat the incident every Friday until Sweden is included in NATO.

Türkiye had already expressed concerns that Sweden was not sufficiently committed to fighting terrorists of organizations like the PKK, its Syrian affiliate YPG, and the Gülenist Terror Group (FETÖ), as well as their sympathizers.

Since the two Nordic countries officially applied to join NATO in May last year, Hungary and Türkiye have been withholding their accession, which requires all 30 members to agree to new entrants. Ankara has been demanding tougher anti-terror laws and terrorist extraditions from Stockholm besides the lifting of an arms embargo.

A trilateral pact inked on the margins of a NATO summit in Madrid in June 2022 bound Sweden and Finland to a series of commitments aimed at assuaging Ankara’s security concerns while Türkiye has warned the process would a hit dead-end if promises were not kept.

Unfortunately for Sweden, those concerns have not dwindled as demonstrations by PKK supporters targeting Türkiye and Erdoğan, as well as the desecration of the Quran under government authorization in recent weeks have brought tensions to a boiling point and already slow-paced NATO talks have come to a halt altogether.

Swedish Prime Minister Kristersson addressed Finland's Marin on Thursday, saying: "We have embarked on this journey together. And we are also completing the journey to membership together."

However, an opinion poll published by the Finnish newspaper Ilta-Sanomat showed a majority of respondents said Finland should not wait to join NATO if the ratification of Sweden's application drags on longer.

On the other hand, Marin said she does not like neighbor Sweden being portrayed as "some kind of problem child in the classroom."

"It's strange that the situation presents Sweden like the naughty kid in the classroom. Sweden also fulfills the requirements to become a NATO member," the Finnish premier reiterated.

She was confident that all NATO countries would ratify their applications "soon" and they would join the NATO summit in Vilnius by July.

Potential split

However, experts argue Finland could seek a separate path to join the NATO ranks.

Teivo Teivainen, a Finnish political scientist, said his country is "likely to join NATO without Sweden" if the Finnish NATO bid is ratified by all, including Türkiye, and the Swedish bid is not in the long run, because of its neighbor's complications with Ankara.

Finland did not hinge its NATO accession on another country’s situation when it first sought membership in 2022, Teivainen, a professor at the University of Helsinki, told Anadolu Agency (AA) in an interview.

He added new considerations would come into play if the situation remains unchanged after the Turkish general elections this May and the NATO summit in Lithuania on July 11-12.

Teivainen also contended that Helsinki’s joining the bloc alone would be a "second-best" option for Sweden instead of neither joining at all.

For Helsinki, going in alone is "more like a ranked preference," Teivainen said.

Moreover, he emphasized that there were "more restrictions" in Finland than in Sweden regarding "the balance between freedom of expression and protecting certain groups on the basis of religious beliefs."

"So it's quite clear in Finland, the police and the courts would act in a much harsher way when it comes to Quran burning for example than in a country like Sweden," he said.

The Finnish police indeed contacted people who were planning to burn the Quran and prevented another such provocative attempt last week.

Anti-terror legislation

Kristersson further revealed his government had formalized its anti-terrorism bill at the cabinet meeting earlier in the day.

"The bill will be sent to the parliament in March and that will come into effect from June 1. This is a cornerstone in Sweden's long-term commitment to fighting terrorism," he noted.

"The proposed legislation widens the scope of activities that can be prosecuted, particularly within a terrorist organization that does not need to be concretely connected to a specific terrorism-related crime," Kristersson’s Justice Minister Gunnar Strommer told a separate press conference on Thursday.

Actions such as handling equipment, organizing camps or locations for meetings, cooking or being in charge of transport for designated terrorist organizations would be criminalized under the new law.

The legislation only partially meets Ankara’s demands about cutting support to terrorists since, according to Strommer, "partaking in a demonstration or at a meeting will not in itself be punishable."

He also said flag-waving in itself would not be criminalized but such activities could potentially be used as evidence in court.

Call for calm

As for the recent tensions with Türkiye and the provocations in Sweden, Kristersson said he understands and shares the disappointment caused by these actions. "My message to all Swedes is very simple: Let's calm the situation down and let's focus on what really matters, which is enhancing the national security as full members of NATO," said Kristersson.

He pledged that Sweden will do its part for its commitments under the triple memorandum.

A day earlier, Foreign Minister Mevlüt Çavuşoğlu said Sweden has taken no concrete steps to implement what it agreed to in the tripartite deal.

Erdoğan, however, extinguished Sweden’s NATO dreams altogether the same day as he vowed Türkiye "will not say 'yes' to your entry into NATO as long as you allow my holy book to be burned and torn, and you do so together with your security forces."