Search results
Results from the WOW.Com Content Network
NATO in 2025 . The North Atlantic Treaty Organization (NATO) is an international military alliance consisting of 32 member states from Europe and North America. It was established at the signing of the North Atlantic Treaty on 4 April 1949. Of the 32 member countries, 30 are in Europe and two are in North America.
In May 2000, these countries joined with Croatia to form the Vilnius Group in order to cooperate and lobby for common NATO membership, and by the 2002 Prague summit seven were invited for membership, which took place at the 2004 Istanbul summit. [61] Slovenia had held a referendum on NATO the previous year, with 66% approving of membership. [62]
Any treaty concerning Cyprus' participation in NATO would likely be blocked by Turkey because of the Cyprus dispute. [11] The 2022 Russian invasion of Ukraine reignited debate surrounding NATO membership in several countries, with Finland and Sweden both joining NATO after decades of neutrality. Of the 32 NATO member states, 30 are European states.
Turkey was also the first, and until recently only, Muslim country in NATO. (Albania joined in 2009.) Before Erdogan's tenure, however, Turkey was steadfastly secular; women were actually barred ...
Finland, which shares a 1,340-kilometer (830-mile) border with Russia, joined NATO in April 2023 in a historic move following decades of military non-alignment.
As recently as 2021, its defence minister had rejected NATO membership, only for the then-Social Democrat government to apply, alongside neighbour Finland, just a few months later.
Almost 60,000 NATO troops were joined by forces from non-NATO countries in this peacekeeping mission. This transitioned into the smaller SFOR , which started with 32,000 troops initially and ran from December 1996 until December 2004, when operations were then passed onto the European Union Force Althea . [ 61 ]
Finland on Tuesday made its first deployment for NATO since joining the alliance in April 2023, sending seven F-18 fighter jets to a military base in southeastern Romania where they will conduct ...