NATO chief confident Nordic pair will join despite holdups

BRUSSELS (AP) — NATO Secretary-General Jens Stoltenberg says he’s confident that Finland and Sweden will join the military alliance. Sweden and Finland dropped their longstanding policies of military nonalignment and applied to join NATO in May, just months after Russia invaded Ukraine. Turkey, however, has held up the membership process. The Turkish government wants the two Nordic neighbors to crack down on groups it considers terrorist organizations and to extradite people suspected of terror-related crimes. Turkey’s foreign minister said last month that Sweden wasn’t even halfway toward meetings its commitments. Sweden’s prime minister says the country has done all it can. Stoltenberg said Tuesday he’s “confident that the accession process will be finalized.”