dpa
London
The Finnish government announced on Tuesday that it would begin preparations to withdraw from the Ottawa Convention banning the use of anti-personnel landmines in the light of a changed security environment in Europe.
“Finland is not currently facing an immediate military threat.
Withdrawing from the Ottawa Convention will give us the possibility to prepare for the changes in the security environment in a more versatile way,” Prime Minister Petteri Orpo said.
Finland has since 2012 been a party to the 1999 Ottawa Convention, which prohibits the stockpiling, production and transfer of anti-personnel mines and governs their destruction. The United States, Russia, China and India are among the countries not party to the convention.
Noting that Russia was not a party, the Finnish government said Moscow had used anti-personnel mines in its war of aggression against Ukraine and that as a NATO ally, Finland was also defending the alliance’s border with Russia. Finland shares a border of 1,340 kilometres with Russia.
A final decision lies with the Finnish parliament, and actual reintroduction of the mines could take some time.
Last month, the defence ministers of Poland and the three Baltic republics recommended that their countries withdraw from the Ottawa Convention.
The Finnish government also said on Tuesday that the defence budget would rise to at least 3% of economic output by 2029. Sweden and the United Kingdom have recently announced similar targets amid calls for even higher spending by NATO allies.
