NATO member Finland plans to quit a global convention banning anti-personnel landmines and boost defense spending to at least 3% of GDP by 2029 in response to the evolving military threat from Russia, the government said on Tuesday. <\/p>\n
Poland and the Baltic countries of Estonia, Latvia and Lithuania said last month they would withdraw from the 1997 Ottawa convention due to threats posed by neighboring Russia. <\/p>\n
By leaving the treaty, Finland, which guards NATO\u2019s longest border with Russia, could start stockpiling landmines again to have them at hand should a need arise. <\/p>\n
Prime Minister Petteri Orpo told a press conference there was no immediate military threat to his Nordic nation, but that Russia poses a long-term danger to all of Europe. <\/p>\n
\u201cWithdrawing from the Ottawa Convention will give us the possibility to prepare for the changes in the security environment in a more versatile way,\u201d he said. <\/p>\n
He added that Finland would allocate an additional 3 billion euros ($3.24 billion) to defense, raising the level of military spending from 2.41% in 2024 to 3% of gross domestic product by 2029. <\/p>\n
President Alexander Stubb said in a post on X: \u201cThis is a part of Finland\u2019s contribution to Europe taking greater responsibility for our own defense.\u201d <\/p>\n
The announcements come with US President Donald Trump doubling down on ending the war in Ukraine, which has stirred growing Polish and Baltic concerns that Russia could re-arm and target them instead. <\/p>\n
Finland joined the NATO military alliance in 2023 in a policy shift away from decades of nonalignment triggered by Russia\u2019s invasion of Ukraine, drawing a Russian threat of \u201ccounter-measures.\u201d <\/p>\n
Finland began considering withdrawal from the Ottawa treaty last November when its military commander said the matter should be discussed due to Russia\u2019s use of such weapons in Ukraine. <\/p>\n
\u201cFinland will use mines in a responsible way, but it\u2019s a deterrent we need,\u201d Agriculture and Forestry Minister Sari Essayah told reporters on Tuesday. <\/p>\n
Anti-personnel landmines are designed to be hidden in the ground and detonate automatically when someone steps on them or passes by in their proximity. <\/p>\n
Finland destroyed over 1 million landmines after 2012, becoming the last EU state to sign the Ottawa convention, which has been ratified or acceded to by more than 160 countries – but not by Russia. <\/p>\n
The 1997 treaty was one of a series of international agreements concluded after the end of the Cold War to encourage global disarmament. Anti-landmine campaigners won the Nobel Peace Prize that same year. <\/p>\n
Mines have killed or maimed tens of thousands of civilians around the world, many of them long after wars have ended. <\/p>\n
Leaving the treaty will require approval by the Finnish parliament but is expected to pass given widespread support among government and opposition parties. <\/p>\n<\/p>\n
<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"
NATO member Finland plans to quit a global convention banning anti-personnel landmines and boost defense spending to at least 3% of GDP by 2029 in response to the evolving military threat from Russia, the government…<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":5962,"comment_status":"closed","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[118],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-5961","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","hentry","category-world"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/invest360pro.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/5961","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/invest360pro.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/invest360pro.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/invest360pro.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/1"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/invest360pro.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=5961"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/invest360pro.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/5961\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/invest360pro.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/5962"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/invest360pro.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=5961"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/invest360pro.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=5961"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/invest360pro.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=5961"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}