Finnish President Sauli Niinistö, who is currently visiting Lithuania, is sceptical about the possibility to station nuclear weapons in Finland following the country’s accession to NATO.
“When it comes to nuclear armaments, we haven’t discussed it in Finland. We will surely have discussions on all issues after we finally become members [of NATO]. But my own opinion is that it sounds not at all familiar to me to think that we could have nuclear armaments [in Finland],” Niinistö said during a news conference in Vilnius on Friday.
Earlier this week, Finnish newspaper Iltalehti reported that Finland’s foreign and defence ministers promised NATO in July that they would not seek “restrictions or national reservations” if Helsinki’s NATO application was accepted.
Sources told Iltalehti this means that NATO nuclear weapons could transit through or be based in Finland. There would also be no restrictions on establishing NATO bases in the country.
Turkey’s objections
Finland and Sweden dropped decades of military non-alignment and applied to become NATO members in May after Russia invaded Ukraine.
To date, all NATO member states except for Turkey and Hungary have ratified the accession protocols of Sweden and Finland.
Budapest said last week it supported the applications of the two countries and Hungary’s parliament would ratify them by mid-December. Ankara has not yet given any specific dates.
Turkey has accused the two Nordic nations, in particular Sweden, of providing a safe haven to Kurdish militants it considers to be “terrorists”.
Ankara was more concerned about Stockholm, not Helsinki, Niinistö said, but stressed that Finland thinks “it’s very important to walk hand in hand with Sweden”.
“Turkey will ratify our membership eventually. I hope this will happen as soon as possible,” the Finnish president added.
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