PARIS

France on Saturday welcomed Turkish President Recep Tayyip Erdogan's announcement to move ahead with Finland's NATO membership bid.

In a written statement, the Foreign Ministry said both Finland and Sweden have important and interoperable military capacities, and strengthening of NATO is beneficial for all allies.

Türkiye on Friday said it is starting the approval process of Finland's NATO membership in its parliament.

For Sweden, however, Erdogan said the process "will be directly linked to the concrete steps" which it will take.

Abandoning decades of military non-alignment, Finland and Sweden formally applied to join NATO last May.

But Türkiye, a longstanding NATO member, asked the two Nordic states to take concrete action against terror groups.

In June, Finland, and Sweden signed a memorandum with Türkiye to address Ankara’s security concerns, and senior diplomats and officials from the three countries have held various meetings since then to discuss the implementation of the trilateral agreement.