North Macedonia to officially join NATO on Friday

North Macedonia is expected to deliver paperwork to the U.S. State Department on Friday that will officially make it the 30th member of the NATO alliance.

The move — decades in the making — has been all but finished since Spain became the last nation to ratify the ascension effort last week. In a March 20 letter to North Macedonian Prime Minister Oliver Spasovski, NATO Secretary General Jens Stoltenberg officially invited the former Yugoslavian country to become the 30th member of the alliance.

But for the deal to be complete, North Macedonia must deliver its “instrument of accession” to the State Department; the North Macedonian embassy in Washington confirmed to Defense News that the paperwork will be delivered on Friday. A formal flag-raising ceremony is expected to follow at NATO headquarters in Brussels.

Read the full article and more in Defense News.