Finland feels safer now it is part of NATO, Minister for Foreign Affairs Pekka Haavisto tells Arab News

Short Url
Updated 02 June 2023
Follow

Finland feels safer now it is part of NATO, Minister for Foreign Affairs Pekka Haavisto tells Arab News

Finland feels safer now it is part of NATO, Minister for Foreign Affairs Pekka Haavisto tells Arab News
  • Expresses gratitude to Saudi Arabia for providing a platform for Sudanese factions to discuss ceasefire
  • Offers Helsinki’s support for the circular economy, a model that is also championed by Saudi Arabia

HELSINKI: Although Finland has a strong military, including a conscript army and 300,000 male and female reservists, the Nordic nation feels safer now that it is part of NATO, Pekka Haavisto, its minister for foreign affairs, told Arab News.

Russia’s invasion of Ukraine in February 2022 set off a chain of events that culminated in Finland becoming the 31st member of the Western military alliance on April 4, more than doubling the length of the Russian Federation’s border with NATO.

“In case we are attacked at any day now, we are safer when we can also get NATO support at any moment,” Haavisto said during an interview in Helsinki, which covered issues ranging from the war in Ukraine to crises in the Horn of Africa and his own country’s prominent role as a champion of sustainable development.

In response to Finland’s move, Russian officials issued thinly veiled threats against the country, which until last year maintained a policy of military nonalignment. The Kremlin called the NATO accession “an encroachment on our security and on Russia’s national interests” that would force Russia to “take countermeasures.”

Haavisto, who last month formally handed Finland’s NATO accession document to US Secretary of State Antony Blinken in Brussels, called the possibility that Russia would launch an attack on Finland “unpredictable.”

“What we are afraid of, of course, is that Russia can make other miscalculations in Europe, and we don’t want to be part of any miscalculation,” he said.

Haavisto clarified that Finland had had “the NATO option” since 2004, which meant that while the country was outside the organization, any event that caused concern could lead it to apply for membership.




Haavisto speaking during the interview, which covered issues ranging from the war in Ukraine to crises in the Horn of Africa and his own country’s prominent role as a champion of sustainable development. (AN Photo)

“(But) our estimation of our situation and our security situation changed,” he said, alluding to the Ukraine invasion. “We decided that together with Sweden, we will apply for NATO membership because of our own security.

“We will not threaten anyone. We are not currently threatened. But, of course, when you saw a war in Europe, you could always imagine what an escalation of war could mean in Europe.”

While Finland and Sweden both applied for NATO membership on July 5 last year, their accessions to the alliance were stalled for months. For a country to join NATO, all existing members must ratify the accession, and in the case of Sweden and Finland, Turkiye and Hungary initially refused to do so.

In particular, Turkiye made several demands of Sweden and Finland, including the extradition of several individuals that its claims are terrorists and the lifting of arms embargoes imposed on Ankara after it sent its forces into northern Syria in 2019.

As part of the negotiations, Sweden announced that it would allow arms exports to Turkiye again and pass stronger anti-terrorism laws. Finland followed suit in January.

Although Turkiye eventually ratified Finland’s accession, the Swedish bid is still on the table.

“There are good chances that prior to the NATO summit in July in Vilnius, Sweden will be approved as a NATO member,” Haavisto said.

With Turkish President Recep Tayyip Erdogan winning re-election for another five-year term, Haavisto is closely following several foreign policy issues related to Turkiye in addition to the Swedish application for NATO membership.

He cited the importance of Turkiye-Syria relations, saying that “the fate of Turkey and Syria is very interlinked” and called for “a peaceful path” to a political solution in Syria.

FASTFACTS

* Finland became NATO’s 31st member on April 4 this year.

* The UN World Happiness Report has ranked Finland No. 1 every year since 2016.

* Saudi Arabia and Finland have had diplomatic relations since 1969.

He also called for a solution to tensions between Greece and Turkiye in the Eastern Mediterranean, citing the territorial dispute that has divided the island since 1974 as an example.

Another file Haavisto is following closely is the crisis unfolding in Sudan. He believes the ongoing conflict must not distract the international community from the goal of transferring political power ultimately to the Sudanese people.

“It’s very important that the future of Sudan is based on the civilian components,” said Haavisto, who previously served as a high-level EU envoy to conflict-prone areas of Africa.

On Monday, representatives of the Sudanese Armed Forces, led by General Abdel Fattah Al-Burhan, and Rapid Support Forces, led by Mohamed “Hemedti” Dagalo — the two factions locked in combat since April 15 — agreed to a five-day extension of an existing ceasefire and humanitarian arrangements brokered by Saudi Arabia and the US following talks in Jeddah.

“We are very grateful to Saudi Arabia for giving a platform for Al-Burhan and Hemedti’s military representatives to negotiate all these issues. (What is really needed now) are peace initiatives,” Haavisto said.

Having previously supported efforts to end the war in Ethiopia’s Tigray as the EU’s special envoy to that country, Haavisto’s ministry is closely monitoring the Sudan crisis, which has engulfed the capital Khartoum and other states.

An unfortunate fallout of the armed conflict, he said, was that “the perspective that everything was about transforming the power in Sudan from the military to the civilians has been lost. And unfortunately, the (former) prime minister, (Abdalla) Hamdok, was sidelined.”

Hamdok, who was appointed prime minister during Sudan’s transition to a civilian-led government in 2019, was ousted during a military coup in October 2021. Although he was restored as prime minister a month later amid growing public outrage toward the military, he resigned in January 2022.

Haavisto said he was in touch with Hamdok and a number of individuals and civil society groups in Sudan. “We hope, of course, that (the current ceasefire) will be continued until the future, and those who are taking up arms will lay them down as soon as possible,” he said.

During a visit to Riyadh in April 2021 for discussions with Saudi officials while on his way to Ethiopia amid the Tigray war, Haavisto told Arab News it was important that the EU worked with Saudi Arabia in view of the Kingdom’s “good relations with all parties in the whole of Africa.”

“International cooperation … is very important,” he said at the time, citing, presciently, the risks of another conflict in a part of Africa where disputes were rife.

Now, more than a month into the Sudan conflict, Finland wholeheartedly supports Saudi and American efforts to broker a long-lasting ceasefire and peace deal between the feuding factions.

As Haavisto sees it, the war in Sudan is a complex challenge that will require the participation of many actors and the implementation of long-term plans. The strong links between Sudan’s military and economy, especially during the rule of dictator Omar Al-Bashir in the 1990s and 2000s, created serious problems for the country.

“Now I’m seeing that the same problem remains both with Al-Burhan and Hemedti — that economic and military interests are connected. And this, of course, is also something that is an obstacle for Sudan to develop its economy on a free basis, as a free-market economy, in the future. And, unfortunately, (this factor) is probably slowing the economic growth of Sudan as well.”




Pekka Haavisto with Arab News assistant editor-in-chief Noor Nugali in Finland’s capital Helsinki. (AN Photo)

Concerns about regional and international conflicts have neither stopped nor slowed Finland’s drive to become a global environmental leader. Helsinki is currently hosting the World Circular Economy Forum 2023, which aims to create a new “green” economy and more jobs by taking advantage of circular economy solutions in line with the UN’s 17 sustainable development goals.

“This circular economy meeting that takes place in Helsinki, of course, is part of our policy to support the circular economy, not only in our own country, but worldwide,” said Haavisto, who is a veteran of Finland’s Green League party and a former minister of the environment.

“Recycled materials have huge energy-saving and renewable energy forms … For example, there has been a huge wind power investment now to Finland, and wind power is becoming a more and more important source of energy for us.”

Finland has some of the highest energy consumption per capita in the EU and is one of the only countries in the world that still uses peat as an energy source, so it has plenty of motivation to increase its use of renewables.

So far, the country has made good on a number of its promises: Over the past seven years, the number of operational wind turbines in the country increased from 552 to 1,266, according to the Finnish Wind Power Association. Last year, Finland passed the Climate Change Act, which set 2035 as the target for the country to go carbon neutral, with carbon-negative goals set for 2040.

“We see a lot of potential in both wind and solar power globally,” Haavisto said, adding that Finland was eager to demonstrate new technologies and inventions for energy efficiency at the upcoming UN Climate Change Conference (COP28) in Dubai.

“We can combine economic growth with a good environment, and a safe environment. I think that’s our key message from Finland.”

 


A suspected bomb blast kills at least 3 Christian worshippers in southern Philippines

Members of police Special Weapons and Tactics (SWAT) stand guard along a popular market street in Manila on June 1, 2022. (AFP)
Members of police Special Weapons and Tactics (SWAT) stand guard along a popular market street in Manila on June 1, 2022. (AFP)
Updated 6 min 32 sec ago
Follow

A suspected bomb blast kills at least 3 Christian worshippers in southern Philippines

Members of police Special Weapons and Tactics (SWAT) stand guard along a popular market street in Manila on June 1, 2022. (AFP)
  • The explosion occurred during a Catholic Mass in the gym, DZBB radio reported

MANILA, Philippines: A powerful explosion believed caused by a bomb ripped through a Catholic Mass and killed at least three people and wounded several others Sunday in a predominantly Muslim city in the southern Philippines, officials said.
The morning Mass was underway in a gymnasium at the state-run Marawi State University in Marawi city when the explosion happened, causing panic among dozens of worshippers and leaving the victims bloodied and sprawled on the ground, said Taha Mandangan, the security chief of the sprawling state-run campus.
At least two of the wounded were fighting for their lives, Mandangan said.
“This is clearly an act of terrorism. It’s not a simple feud between two people. A bomb will kill everybody around,” Mandangan told The Associated Press by telephone.
Army troops and police immediately cordoned off the area and were conducting an initial investigation and checking security cameras for any indication of who may have been responsible for the attack. Security checkpoints were set up around city.
There was no clear indication yet who was responsible for the explosion but police said they were not ruling out the involvement of Muslim militants, who still have a presence in the region despite years of military and police offensives.
The mosque-studded city came under attack from militants aligned with the Daesh group in 2017, leaving more than 1,100 killed, mostly militants, before the five-month siege was quelled by Filipino forces backed by airstrikes and surveillance planes deployed by the United States and Australia.
The southern Philippines is the homeland of minority Muslims in the predominantly Roman Catholic nation and the scene of decades-old separatist rebellion.
The largest armed insurgent group, the Moro Islamic Liberation Front, signed a 2014 peace deal with the government considerably easing decades of fighting. But a number of smaller armed groups rejected the peace pact and press on with bombings and other attacks while evading government offensives.

 


Breaches by Iran-affiliated hackers spanned multiple US states, federal agencies say

Breaches by Iran-affiliated hackers spanned multiple US states, federal agencies say
Updated 03 December 2023
Follow

Breaches by Iran-affiliated hackers spanned multiple US states, federal agencies say

Breaches by Iran-affiliated hackers spanned multiple US states, federal agencies say
  • Since the beginning of the Israel-Hamas war, the group has expanded and accelerated targeting Israeli critical infrastructure, said Check Point’s Sergey Shykevich

HARRISBURG, Pennsylvania: A small western Pennsylvania water authority was just one of multiple organizations breached in the United States by Iran-affiliated hackers who targeted a specific industrial control device because it is Israeli-made, US and Israeli authorities say.
“The victims span multiple US states,” the FBI, the Environmental Protection Agency, the Cybersecurity and Infrastructure Security Agency, known as CISA, as well as Israel’s National Cyber Directorate said in an advisory emailed to The Associated Press late Friday.
They did not say how many organizations were hacked or otherwise describe them.
Matthew Mottes, the chairman of the Municipal Water Authority of Aliquippa, which discovered it had been hacked on Nov. 25, said Thursday that federal officials had told him the same group also breached four other utilities and an aquarium.
Cybersecurity experts say that while there is no evidence of Iranian involvement in the Oct. 7 attack into Israel by Hamas that triggered the war in Gaza they expected state-backed Iranian hackers and pro-Palestinian hacktivists to step up cyberattacks on Israeli and its allies in its aftermath. And indeed that has happened.
The multiagency advisory explained what CISA had not when it confirmed the Pennsylvania hack on Wednesday — that other industries outside water and water-treatment facilities use the same equipment — Vision Series programmable logic controllers made by Unitronics — and were also potentially vulnerable.
Those industries include “energy, food and beverage manufacturing and health care,” the advisory says. The devices regulate processes including pressure, temperature and fluid flow.
The Aliquippa hack promoted workers to temporarily halt pumping in a remote station that regulates water pressure for two nearby towns, leading crews to switch to manual operation. The hackers left a digital calling card on the compromised device saying all Israeli-made equipment is “a legal target.”
The multiagency advisory said it was not known if the hackers had tried to penetrate deeper into breached networks. The access they did get enabled “more profound cyber physical effects on processes and equipment,” it said.
The advisory says the hackers, who call themselves “Cyber Av3ngers,” are affiliated with Iran’s Islamic Revolutionary Guards Corps, which the US designated as a foreign terrorist organization in 2019. The group targeted the Unitronics devices at least since Nov. 22, it said.
An online search Saturday with the Shodan service identified more than 200 such Internet-connected devices in the US and more than 1,700 globally.
The advisory notes that Unitronics devices ship with a default password, a practice experts discourage as it makes them more vulnerable to hacking. Best practices call for devices to require a unique password to be created out of the box. It says the hackers likely accessed affected devices by “exploiting cybersecurity weaknesses, including poor password security and exposure to the Internet.”
Experts say many water utilities have paid insufficient attention to cybersecurity.
In response to the Aliquippa hack, three Pennsylvania congressmen asked the US Justice Department in a letter to investigate. Americans must know their drinking water and other basic infrastructure is safe from “nation-state adversaries and terrorist organizations,” US Sens. John Fetterman and Bob Casey and US Rep. Chris Deluzio said. Cyber Av3ngers claimed in an Oct. 30 social media post to have hacked 10 water treatment stations in Israel, though it is not clear if they shut down any equipment.
Since the beginning of the Israel-Hamas war, the group has expanded and accelerated targeting Israeli critical infrastructure, said Check Point’s Sergey Shykevich. Iran and Israel were engaged in low-level cyberconflict prior to the Oct. 7. Unitronics has not responded to the AP queries about the hacks.
The attack came less than a month after a federal appeals court decision prompted the EPA to rescind a rule that would have obliged USpublic water systems to include cybersecurity testing in their regular federally mandated audits. The rollback was triggered by a federal appeals court decision in a case brought by Missouri, Arkansas and Iowa, and joined by a water utility trade group.
The Biden administration has been trying to shore up cybersecurity of critical infrastructure — more than 80 percent of which is privately owned — and has imposed regulations on sectors including electric utilities, gas pipelines and nuclear facilities. But many experts complain that too many vital industries are permitted to self-regulate.

 


Ex-president barred from leaving Ukraine amid alleged plan to meet with Hungary’s Viktor Orban

Ex-president barred from leaving Ukraine amid alleged plan to meet with Hungary’s Viktor Orban
Updated 03 December 2023
Follow

Ex-president barred from leaving Ukraine amid alleged plan to meet with Hungary’s Viktor Orban

Ex-president barred from leaving Ukraine amid alleged plan to meet with Hungary’s Viktor Orban
  • Officials from the International Atomic Energy Agency (IAEA) have been monitoring safety at the Zaporizhzhia plant, which is one of the world’s 10 biggest nuclear power stations

KYIV, Ukraine: Former President Petro Poroshenko was denied permission to leave Ukraine for a planned meeting with Hungarian Prime Minister Viktor Orban, Ukraine’s security service said Saturday.
Poroshenko announced Friday that he had been turned away at the border despite previously receiving permission from Parliament to leave the country. Under martial law, Ukrainian men between 18 and 60 years of age are not allowed to leave the country without special approval.
The 58-year-old, who lost his re-election bid in 2019 to current Ukrainian president Volodymyr Zelensky, said that he had planned to meet with US House Speaker Mike Johnson, and the Polish parliament during his trip.
But security officials said that Poroshenko had also agreed to meet Orban, who has previously praised Russian President Vladimir Putin and refused to support Kyiv’s bid for EU accession. In a statement on social media, they said such talks would make Poroshenko a “tool in the hands of the Russian special services.”
Poroshenko, who called his experience at the border an “attack on unity”, is yet to comment on the allegation that he planned to meet Orban.
Meanwhile, Ukraine’s Zaporizhzhia nuclear power plant was left on “the verge of a nuclear and radiation accident” Saturday after it was unable to draw power from two of the lines connecting it to the local energy grid, the country’s nuclear energy operator said.
It said that the plant switched to diesel generators to stop the plant from overheating before off-site power was restored by Kyiv.
Russia occupied the Zaporizhzhia plant in the early stages of the war. Over the past year, the station has become a focal point of concern for international observers, with both Moscow and Kyiv accusing each other of shelling the plant.
In a statement on social media, Petro Kotin, head of Ukraine’s nuclear energy operator, accused Moscow of “incorrect, erroneous, and often deliberately risky operation of the equipment” at the site.
The Associated Press was unable to independently verify the claims.
Officials from the International Atomic Energy Agency (IAEA) have been monitoring safety at the Zaporizhzhia plant, which is one of the world’s 10 biggest nuclear power stations.
Although the plant’s six reactors have been shut down for months, it still needs power and qualified staff to operate crucial cooling systems and other safety features.
Elsewhere in Ukraine, Russia launched 11 Iranian-made Shahed drones and one guided cruise missile overnight Saturday, military officials said. The missile and all but one of the drones were reportedly destroyed by Ukrainian air defenses.
The Russian Defense Ministry also said that it had shot down two Ukrainian C-200 rockets over the Sea of Azov.

 


Tens of thousands of pro-Palestinian supporters stage events across Britain

Tens of thousands of pro-Palestinian supporters stage events across Britain
Updated 03 December 2023
Follow

Tens of thousands of pro-Palestinian supporters stage events across Britain

Tens of thousands of pro-Palestinian supporters stage events across Britain

LONDON: Tens of thousands of people across the UK held protests on Saturday as part of a “Day of Action” against the resumption of Israel’s renewed attack on Gaza following a seven-day pause in fighting, organizers said. 

“Israel’s decision to resume its bombardment of Gaza flies in the face of international law, which prohibits collective punishment and attacks on civilians,” said Ben Jamal, the director of the Palestine Solidarity Campaign — one of the organizers of the nationwide call. 

“Every humanitarian agency on the ground has indicated that the scale of destruction already wrought by Israel has pushed Gaza to the brink of catastrophe, where deaths from disease and lack of medical services could outstrip the current casualty figures,” he added.

“In that context not only is it unconscionable that Israel would renew its attacks, (but) it is also shameful and unacceptable that UK political leaders would give their support, tacitly or explicitly.”

At least 193 Palestinians have been killed since the cease-fire ended on Friday, according to Gazan health officials, adding to the more than 15,000 Palestinians killed since the start of the war between Israel and Hamas following a surprise attack on Oct. 7 in southern Israel.

“Ordinary people across the UK will come out again to show the vast majority of them support a permanent cease-fire, they will show their solidarity with Palestinians who are experiencing unbearable suffering, (and) they will also demand the root causes are not forgotten — Israel’s decades-long military occupation of Palestinian territories and its system of apartheid against Palestinians.

“We demand justice for the Palestinian people – their right to self-determination and to live in freedom, dignity and with equality,” he added.

PSC has organized weekly national marches in London since the war began, some of which organizers said drew around 800,000 people and was among the nations biggest demonstrations in history. The next scheduled national march is set to be held on Dec. 9.

Various events were held around the country as part of the call, including cease-fire rallies and vigils in places such as Brighton, Hull in the north of England, Coventry in the center, Canterbury in the southeast, and the Welsh capital Cardiff.


Attacker stabs German tourist to death in Paris

Attacker stabs German tourist to death in Paris
Updated 03 December 2023
Follow

Attacker stabs German tourist to death in Paris

Attacker stabs German tourist to death in Paris
  • A police source said the attacker was known for psychiatric disorders

PARIS: A person known to the French authorities as a radical Islamist with mental health troubles stabbed a German tourist to death and wounded two people in central Paris on Saturday before being arrested, officials said.
The attack took place close to the Eiffel Tower during a busy late weekend night and came with the country on its highest alert for attacks as tensions rise against the background of the war between Israel and Hamas.
“We will not give in to terrorism,” Prime Minister Elisabeth Borne wrote on X, formerly Twitter, after the attack.
French anti-terror prosecutors said that they would now take on the investigation.
The attacker was known to authorities as a radical Islamist and was being treated for mental illness, a police source told AFP.
He shouted “Allahu Akbar” (“God is greatest“) before being arrested, the source added.
The Paris prosecutor’s office said the attacker is French, born in 1997, and has been arrested in an investigation into murder and attempted murder.
Interior Minister Gerald Darmanin who visited the the scene by the River Seine’s Bir Hakeim bridge said the man had already been sentenced in 2016 to “four years in prison” for planning another attack which he failed to carry out.
“A man attacked a couple who were foreign tourists. A German tourist who was born in the Philippines died from the stabbing,” he said.
A taxi driver who witnessed the scene intervened, Darmanin said. The attacker then crossed the Seine attacking others and injuring one with a hammer, while police chased in pursuit.
Police used a taser to neutralize the man who was then arrested.
“He had threatened them very violently... he will now have to answer for his actions before justice,” Darmanin said.
The suspect told police he could not stand Muslims being killed in “Afghanistan and Palestine,” according to the minister.
Joseph S., 37 years old, a supermarket manager who asked not to give his last name, witnessed the scene, as he sat in a bar.
He heard screams and people shouting “help, help” as they ran. A man wielding an object attacked a man who had fallen down, and within 10 minutes the police arrived, he told AFP.
The country has suffered several attacks by Islamist extremists, including the November 2015 suicide and gun attacks in Paris claimed by the Daesh group in which 130 people were killed.
There had been a relative lull in recent years, even as officials have warned that the threat remains.
But tensions have risen in France, home to large Jewish and Muslim populations, following Hamas’s attack on Israel on October 7 and Israel’s bombardment of the Gaza Strip.
Security in Paris is also under particular scrutiny as it gears up to host the 2024 Summer Olympic Games.
In October, teacher Dominique Bernard was killed in the northern French town of Arras by a young radicalized Islamist from Russia’s Caucasus region.