Finnish President Sauli Niinisto thanked President Recep Tayyip Erdoğan for announcing plans to start the ratification process for his country's NATO membership bid.

"We understood earlier on that you have done your decision and signing it today confirms that the Turkish Parliament starts to work with ratification of Finnish membership," Niinisto told a joint news conference with President Tayyip Erdoğan in the capital Ankara.

He continued by saying that Türkiye's approval of Finland's NATO membership is very important news for the Finnish people, as he thanked Erdoğan.

He also praised the Turkish president for being one of the rare leaders, perhaps the only one, to be able to communicate with all world leaders.

President Erdoğan announced that Türkiye has decided to begin the process of ratifying Finland's NATO membership on Friday, stressing what he said were concrete steps by Helsinki to address Ankara's concerns. On a different note, Erdoğan said Sweden has not responded positively to Türkiye's extradition requests for terrorists, but has instead embraced them.

"Türkiye will continue to hold discussions with Sweden on terrorism-related issues, Stockholm's NATO membership will directly rely on their measures," he said.