STOCKHOLM, December 5. /TASS/. Finland has no intention of deploying NATO nuclear weapons on its territory upon its accession to the alliance, Foreign Minister Pekka Haavisto said at a news conference on Monday.
"We realize that NATO is an alliance that possesses nuclear weapons, but those are under the control of the United States, which does not wish to proliferate them elsewhere," he said. "We are not asking for nuclear weapons and nobody’s offering us any," Finland’s top diplomat said.
According to Haavisto, it is currently "too early to jump to conclusions on how the Finnish army’s training activities and its involvement in international operations will evolve after the country joins NATO," however, it is safe to assume that Finland will take a more active role in international initiatives after it joins the alliance.
On December 5, the Finnish government submitted a bill to parliament on the country’s NATO membership. Early in July, the foreign ministers of Finland and Sweden, as well as the ambassadors of 30 NATO member countries signed protocols on the accession of the two Nordic countries. Helsinki and Stockholm will join NATO after all countries of the Alliance ratify the documents.