The Chamber of Deputies of the Czech Republic overwhelmingly approved the upcoming accession of Sweden and Finland to NATO, Deutsche Welle reports, citing a message on the website of the country's parliament.

Thus, both chambers of Czech legislators voted for the expansion of the North Atlantic Alliance. Earlier, on August 10, the Czech Senate also almost unanimously approved the accession of both Scandinavian countries to NATO. Now the protocols on the ratification of the agreements will have to be signed by Czech President Milos Zeman. His representative has already said that Zeman supports plans to expand the alliance.

The accession of Finland and Sweden to NATO requires the approval of all its 30 member countries. Earlier, the applications were approved by the authorities of the United States, Germany, France and 19 other NATO states. The President of Finland admitted in early August that the ratification of the protocols was happening even faster than expected.

Turkey's position has become the main obstacle to Finland's and Sweden's accession to NATO. The President of this country, Recep Tayyip Erdogan, has repeatedly accused Stockholm and Helsinki of supporting Kurdish armed groups, which Ankara considers terrorist, as well as imposing sanctions against Turkey on the supply of defense products after the start of a military operation against the Kurds in Syria in 2019.

At the end of June, at the NATO summit, the parties managed to agree, and they signed a joint memorandum in which Ankara pledged to support the aspirations of Sweden and Finland for NATO membership.

Erdogan's office then reported that Turkey received what it wanted from both northern European states: Helsinki and Stockholm promised full cooperation in the fight against the PKK and its allies, and also agreed to lift the arms embargo on Turkey.

Erdogan has repeatedly stressed since then that if Finland and Sweden do not fulfill their promises, including extraditing PKK members on their territory to Ankara and amending the legislation on terrorist organizations, then the Turkish parliament will not ratify their applications. Turkish Foreign Minister Mevlut Cavusoglu said on August 11 that Sweden and Finland had not yet fulfilled their obligations.