Yeltsin Warns Finland Against Joining Nato Cold Chill Runs Through Finnish-Russian Relations

In a cold reminder of past East-West thinking, Russian President Boris Yeltsin has warned Finland against joining NATO.

“To us, bringing the alliance’s military infrastructure closer to Russian territory is absolutely unacceptable,” Yeltsin said in an interview published Sunday in Finland’s leading newspaper, Helsingin Sanomat.

Although Finnish leaders have stressed they intend to continue the country’s policy of nonalignment, some politicians have demanded more discussion about foreign and security policy.

Yeltsin’s statement underlined the Kremlin’s deep unhappiness over the probability of NATO expanding eastward.

The alliance is expected to invite several former Soviet bloc countries to join this summer, and expansion will be a key issue when Yeltsin and President Clinton hold a summit in Helsinki this week.

Finland’s “present policy, described as ‘military nonalignment and independent defense,’ plays a notable stabilizing role in the regional and European context as a whole,” Yeltsin said in the interview.

Finland, which shares a 790-mile border with Russia, declared itself neutral after fighting two wars against the Soviet Union from 1939 to 1944. During the Cold War, Finns steered clear of superpower conflicts but warily eyed developments in the Soviet Union and made sure the Kremlin didn’t disapprove of their policies.

In the interview, Yeltsin said that Russia has not ignored Finnish speculation, “including at the level of very influential politicians,” that it might be time to revise the nation’s security policy.

Ole Norrback, Finnish minister for European affairs who broke a long-standing taboo last year by predicting that Finland would join NATO someday, said he is upset by Yeltsin’s statements.

And Kalevi Lamminen, chairman of the Finnish parliamentary defense committee, condemned Yeltsin’s comments.

“I’m sure lots of people choked on their breakfast buns when they read the Helsingin Sanomat interview,” said Lamminen, who has demanded an open discussion about NATO membership in Parliament. “After the Soviet Union broke up, … I believed Finland would be able to independently decide on its affairs, but that belief has proved to be wrong.”