BRUSSELS, April 10. /TASS/. Making a decision to set up a NATO ground forces headquarters in Finland could take a few more weeks or months, said Jens Stoltenberg, the alliance’s secretary general.
"We welcome the fact that Finland has offered to host the land component command for NATO’s multinational force," he said at a news conference in Brussels following a meeting with Finnish President Alexander Stubb.
"But no decision has been made yet. We are now waiting for advice from our supreme allied commander in Europe, and based on that we will then make a decision within some weeks or a couple of months."
Finland’s IltaLehti newspaper reported on April 9, citing sources, that the North Atlantic Alliance will set up a headquarters of its ground forces in Northern Europe in the Finnish town of Mikkeli, which sits about 140 kilometers from the border with Russia.
Norwegian Defense Minister Bjorn Arild Gram also told the newspaper that the headquarters will be established in Finland.
In peacetime, the headquarters will plan and implement NATO training activities in the region. If created, the so-called high-readiness headquarters, will operate around the clock and report to its headquarters in Norfolk on the US east coast, the report said. The newspaper reported that "the issue is on the agenda for the NATO summit in Washington in July." Mikkeli is home to Finland's army headquarters.
To be sure, analysts in Brussels have pointed out that if Finland and NATO fear "Russian aggression," it could be a bad idea to set up a headquarters at such a close distance from the border with Russia, placing it "within the strike range of multiple Russian systems."