Parliamentary Speaker Paavo Lipponen (SDP) takes a positive attitude towards President Tarja Halonen's participation in the VE Day (Victory in Europe) celebrations in Moscow next week.
Lipponen emphasised in Thursday's edition of the daily Turun Sanomat that Russia is a good neighbour to Finland.
"We can accept the fact that Moscow celebrates victory in the Great Patriotic War against Nazi Germany. We pay our respects to the immense suffering of the Russian people as well as their heroics in the conflict", Lipponen writes.
Lipponen also issues the reminder that Finland fought successfully for its own survival between the two great war machines.
"The Baltic States in turn were badly overrun by the war and lost their independence for decades", writes Lipponen, in an article that takes a very conciliatory tone.
"Elsewhere in Europe, peoples and ethnic minorities experienced still worse fates. All this suffering has to be remembered and respected, not excluding that of the Germans. It is time for holding out the hand of reconciliation."
