WASHINGTON, December 18. /TASS/. The United States and Finland have signed a bilateral defense cooperation agreement, according to a live broadcast on the US Department of State’s website.

The agreement will provide the US with access to 15 military bases in Finland.

The signing ceremony involved US Secretary of State Antony Blinken, Finnish Defense Minister Antti Hakkanen and the Nordic country’s top diplomat Elina Valtonen.

"Today, we will further strengthen our security bonds by signing a defense cooperation agreement," Blinken stated. "When it goes into effect, our militaries will be able to collaborate more efficiently and more effectively. Our troops will have more opportunities to train together and will bolster NATO’s interoperability," he added.

Valtonen, in turn, stressed that Helsinki saw Washington as its key strategic partner and ally, as well as the largest trade partner. According to her, the agreement will take Finland’s cooperation with NATO to another level and will also strengthen cooperation in the field of technology.

Earlier, the Finnish government announced plans to sign a defense cooperation agreement with the US on December 18. The Helsingin Sanomat newspaper, in turn, reported that under the agreement Finland would provide the US with access to 15 bases in the Nordic country. The document largely concerns the status of NATO forces. A number of other NATO members, including Latvia, Lithuania, Norway and Estonia, have already signed bilateral agreements with the United States. Denmark and Sweden are in talks with Washington on the issue. Finnish-US negotiations on the agreement lasted from August 2022 to October 2023. Many Finnish experts are skeptical about the document, saying that Finland is giving up a good measure of its sovereignty. However, the move has not sparked any public debate within the country.