«We believe it is time to take the Arctic cooperation to a new level. Finland proposes to convening of an Arctic Summit to discuss a wide range of issues pertaining to the region and beyond,» Finland’s President Sauli Niinistö said in his speech at the Arctic Forum in Arkhangelsk on Thursday.
Niinistö met with Putin together with Iceland’s President Guðni Thorlacius Jóhannesson.
The idea of an Arctic Summit for state leaders during Finland’s upcoming chairmanship of the Arctic Council is not new.
In 2013, then Prime Minister of Finland Jyrki Katainen, told the Barents Observer that Finland was actively considering to arrange such Summit during the country’s chairmanship period from 2017 to 2019. The plans, however, were put on ice as the relations between those days’ Obama administration and Russia deteriorated after Moscow’s annexation of Crimea in 2014. Läs artikel