PM Vanhanen believes Finland acted correctly over cartoon dispute

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Prime Minister Matti Vanhanen (Centre) and his host, the new Emir of Kuwait Sheikh Sabah al-Ahmad al-Sabah, held talks on Monday in Kuwait, including discussions on the riots and upheavals that have followed from the publication in a Danish newspaper of caricatures of the Prophet Muhammad.
      Vanhanen reported that according to the Emir, the initiative now lies with Denmark, the source of the images. The Emir said that violence was unacceptable, but that there should be more of an attempt to understand the profound sentiments of other cultures better.
     
Vanhanen believes that Finland has taken the correct line in the dispute: "Finland's role here is to do as we have done so far: to respect the feelings of the Muslim community. I regard this as very important."
      Vanhanen was in Kuwait to congratulate Sabah Al-Ahmad al-Sabah on his appointment last month, and to discuss bilateral relations. The PM's one-day visit was also aimed at fostering trade relations between the two countries; Patria, a Finnish aerospace and defence group, has since last spring been negotiating the sale of about 100 armoured personnel carriers to Kuwait.
     
Back in Finland, Foreign Minister Erkki Tuomioja (SDP) stated in a newspaper column that he believes that the cartoons of the Prophet Muhammad now have very little to do with the unrest that has been seen across the Middle East and in Muslim countries in Asia.
      Writing in the Swedish-language daily Hufvudstadsbladet, Tuomioja states: "It seems clear that it is a question of a great tension between radical Islam and the so-called Western world, which has built up over the decades and has increased in intensity during the past few years. If the pictures published in Jyllands-Posten had not worked as a catalyst for the events, then sooner or later something else would have happened to create a similar reaction."
      However, citing former President J.K. Paasikivi, one of Finland's most respected statesmen, Tuomioja adds that "it is usually others who have to pay for windows that are broken by journalists" and that the Danish newspaper had demonstrated "stupidity" by printing the depictions of Muhammad in the first place.


Previously in HS International Edition:
  Vanhanen and Tuomioja sharply denounce attacks on embassies (6.2.2006)

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