Finland is set to review its security policy to decide whether to join NATO, President Sauli Niinisto said on Thursday, according to Reuters.
The new review comes just 18 months after the final assessment by the government was completed, which was accelerated after Russia’s invasion of Ukraine.
Many Finns are traditionally wary of Russia, with which the Nordic country shares a 1,340-kilometer border and has a history of two wars between 1939 and 1944 that cost Finland significant territory.
But public support for NATO membership, which has traditionally been around 20%, has risen in recent months.
“Once the alternatives and risks are analyzed, then it is time for conclusions,” Niinisto told reporters, referring to Finland’s possible accession to the defense alliance.
“We have safe solutions for our future as well. We need to reconsider them carefully. Not belatedly, but carefully,” he said. He declined to give a timetable for the process.
Niinisto met with US President Joe Biden in Washington last weekend and is scheduled to hold a telephone conversation with Russian President Vladimir Putin on Friday.
He declined to say what he would discuss with Putin, who described Russia’s actions as “a special military operation to demilitarize and demilitarize Ukraine.” Kyiv and its Western allies stress that this is a baseless pretext to invade a country of 44 million people.
The Finnish authorities also announced on Thursday that they have increased their emergency reserves, adding supplies such as fuel and primary goods to existing ones.
Source: Capital

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