At a press conference with her Swedish counterpart Tobias Billstrom, Germany's Foreign Minister Annalena Baerbock says that it is "very important" that Sweden and Finland join NATO before the US-led defence alliance's next summit in July. Finland and Sweden dropped decades of military non-alignment and applied to join NATO in May last year in response to Russia's invasion of Ukraine. But Turkey has so far refused to ratify the two countries' membership bids, primarily because of Sweden's refusal to extradite dozens of suspects that Ankara links to outlawed Kurdish fighters and a failed 2016 coup attempt. IMAGES