Foreign Minister Tuomioja: Finland will give up infantry land mines

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Finland’s Minister for Foreign Affairs Erkki Tuomioja (SDP) says that it is quite clear that Finland will join the Ottawa Treaty which bans the use of anti-personnel land mines.
      The foreign minister feels that public debate and newspaper headlines on the issue have been misleading; he says that there is no great disagreement on the question in the government.
     
"I do not have the slightest doubt that we will reach a unanimous decision that the whole government can stand behind, and which will be approved in Parliament as well", Tuomioja said on Tuesday.
      Tuomioja made his comments during a discussion of current political issues at an annual meeting of Finnish ambassadors in Helsinki. The meeting was also open to the press.
      Tuomioja said that "a clear political commitment, including a timetable" to join the Ottawa Treaty would be made in connection with the national defence report in the coming autumn. He conceded that the timetable for giving up the land mines requires some "fine tuning", but said that the internal disagreements within the government are minor.
     
The Ministry of Defence and the Ministry for Foreign Affairs failed to reach agreement during the summer on the timetable under which Finland would give up its mines, and on how much money would be needed for technologies to replace the land mines.
      The Ministry of Defence has proposed that from 2007 the Defence Forces would first acquire the new weapons systems with the extra funding, and that the mines would be eliminated in three years, starting in 2010. Under this plan Finland would join the Ottawa treaty in 2012 when most of the new weapons systems have been acquired.
      Under the schedule favoured by the Foreign Ministry, Parliament would decided in 2007 to join the Ottawa Treaty, and that the treaty would come into effect in Finland in 2008. The land mines would be destroyed by the beginning of 2012.
      The Defence Ministry’s model calls for the scrapping of the land mines at the end of 2012.
     
A greater disagreement involves money. The Ministry of Defence wants more than EUR 300 million to pay for the substitution. The Ministry for Foreign Affairs says that EUR 200 million should be sufficient.
      The Ministry of Finance does not want to earmark any "new" money for the purpose, saying that the funding for the new systems should come from the existing budgetary framework.
      Defence Minister Seppo Kääriäinen (Centre) is scheduled to discuss the timing and the finances of the move with Foreign Minister Tuomioja and Minister of Finance Antti Kalliomäki (SDP).


Previously in HS International Edition:
  Minister of Defence: Abandoning land mines would cost more than 200 million (4.8.2004)

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