STOCKHOLM, May 13. /TASS/. Swedish Prime Minister Ulf Kristersson has left the door open for nuclear weapons being based in the kingdom during wartime.

Earlier, he asserted that such weapons would not appear on the country’s military bases during peacetime.

"If there is a war on our soil that Sweden is dragged into, then the situation is completely different. Then all NATO countries will benefit from a nuclear umbrella which should exist as long as Russia has nuclear weapons," he said in an interview with Sveriges Radio, stressing that "on Swedish soil all decisions are made by Sweden itself."

The head of the government answered a question on there being no official ban on nuclear arms in a bilateral defense cooperation agreement with the US, even though such a ban is in effect in Norway and Finland. "We developed two proposals. They say that Sweden proclaimed the absence of regular troops or nuclear arms on its soil in peacetime," he commented.

However, according to him, the approach will be completely different in wartime. In this case, according to Kristersson, "democratic countries <...> must be capable of defending themselves against the countries that may threaten them with nuclear weapons." "The goal of our NATO membership, the goal of Sweden’s entire defense, is to prevent such a situation. Had Ukraine been in NATO, Russia would not have attacked it," the Swedish prime minister said.

In June, Sweden’s parliament will review a recently signed military cooperation agreement with the US, which, among other things, provides the US side with access to 17 Swedish military facilities. Those who criticize this document insist on it including a ban on the deployment of nuclear arms on the country’s territory. The government does not deem this requirement necessary, citing its decision on the non-deployment of such weapons domestically in peacetime.