Finland has called on Russia to stop violating Finnish airspace and to act according to international practice.
A meeting of President Tarja Halonen and the government’s ministerial committee on foreign and security policy found on Wednesday that the response given by Russia to a Finnish note on airspace violations is in conflict with information from Finnish officials responsible for monitoring airspace.
According to a statement issued by the Finnish government, the Russian oral response to the Finnish note sent on April 29th fails to explain the territorial violations.
At the meeting, the Ministry for Foreign Affairs was instructed to prepare procedures for giving out information about airspace violations that have taken place. According to Foreign Minister Erkki Tuomioja, this means that the violations will be published in the future.
In its Wednesday statement, the government notes that Finland has given detailed information to Russia about the airspace violations that have been noticed in the past half year. The statement welcomes Russia’s announcement according to which it plans to improve its flight procedures.
Finnish officials calculate that Russian Air Force planes have violated Finnish airspace over the Gulf of Finland 11 time since October last year. Nine of the violations are considered confirmed.
The incursions were quite short deviations from international airspace onto the Finnish side. The planes were flying between St. Petersburg and the Russian enclave of Kaliningrad.
Prime Minister Matti Vanhanen (Centre) told the Finnish News Agency STT on Tuesday evening that Russia’s response is not satisfactory. He had previously expressed the hope that Russia would give a report on the reasons for the airspace violations before he visits Moscow on Tuesday next week.
