MOSCOW, September 9 (Itar-Tass) —— Russia and Finland have no problems in their relations, Russian Foreign Minister Sergei Lavrov said on Friday, summing up results of the talks with his Finnish counterpart Erkki Tuomioja.
“There are no problems in Russian-Finnish relations. They latter maybe considered as a model,” the minister said.
“Surely, while bilateral relations are getting closer at the official level, as well as between public organisations and individuals, citizens of our country and Finland would like to have guarantees of the maximum comfort for such contacts,” he said.
“The same may be said about mutual investments,” Lavrov said, adding, “We are glad with the process. Over six years, Finnish investments in Russia grew tenfold. This is a record-high result.”
“This may be explained by the intention of our citizens to buy property in Finland and in Russia,” he said. “We discussed this issue from the viewpoint of Russia’s Land Code and related legal regulations.”
“The issues of the kind are not really problems. We simply need to resolve them,” he said, mentioning that among them are the problems of mixed families.
“We offered our Finnish friends to set up a bilateral consultative commission on the affairs of mixed marriages in the light of the several recent situations, which are known well for all of us,” Lavrov said.
The Finnish foreign minister agreed with his assessment. He said Russia and Finland had no pressing problems that needed urgent attention or urgent measures.
As for the future, Finland and Russia should continue their interaction and thereby improve their relations, for instance in the switch to the visa-free travelling and drawing of investments, he said.