The government in Finland is considering whether to close some crossing points on the country\u2019s long border with Russia to prevent people from trying to enter without proper documentation, the Nordic nation\u2019s interior minister and prime minister said Tuesday. Interior Minister Mari Rantanen said the number of migrants at Finland\u2019s southeastern border crossings has risen substantially since August due to what the government suspects is a change in Russia\u2019s border policy and enforcement.<\/p>\n
Finnish and Russian border authorities have for years cooperated in stopping people without the necessary visas or passports before they can attempt to enter either of the two countries. But Russia has started allowing undocumented travellers to access the border zone and enter crossing stations where they can request asylum in Finland, Rantanen said.<\/p>\n
\u201cIt is clear that these people get help to get to the border. This seems like a very conscious decision,\u201d Prime Minister Petteri Orpo told reporters. \u201cThe government\u2019s message is clear: We must take this seriously and safeguard the security of our border.\u201d The number of migrants showing up at the Finland-Russia border so far has remained small, with 71 arriving last week, Finnish border authorities said. About half were from Iraq and the rest from countries that included Syria, Yemen, Turkey and Somalia, they said.<\/p>\n
Rantanen was unable to explain why Moscow\u2019s border policy suddenly changed. \u201cMaybe (Russian officials) are annoyed by something in Finland\u2019s activities. You have to ask the Russian authorities about that,\u201d she said. \u201cWe do hope that Russia changes its policy back as it was before.\u201d After Russia invaded Ukraine last year, Finland applied to join NATO and became the Western military alliance\u2019s 31st member in April. Finnish Defence Minister Antti H\u00e4kk\u00e4nen accused Russia of deliberately ushering migrants toward the border zone as a type of \u201chybrid warfare\u201d. Officials in Latvia, Lithuania and Poland have made the same allegation against Belarus in recent years.<\/p>\n
H\u00e4kk\u00e4nen said he would inform NATO Secretary-General Jens Stoltenberg and the European Union about the situation. Finland\u2019s 1,340-km (832-mile) border with Russia serves as the EU\u2019s external border and NATO\u2019s eastern flank. Thousands of migrants, also mainly from the Middle East, attempted to cross Finland\u2019s northernmost border crossing with Russia in 2015-2016.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"
The government in Finland is considering whether to close some crossing points on the country\u2019s long border with Russia to\u2026<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":28,"featured_media":11175,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[186],"tags":[3196,726,3194,3195,504,609,976,978,290,265],"class_list":["post-11174","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","hentry","category-world","tag-baltic-states","tag-eu","tag-finland","tag-finnish-defence-minister-antti-hakkanen","tag-middle-east","tag-migrants","tag-nato","tag-nato-secretary-general-jens-stoltenberg","tag-russia","tag-russia-ukraine-war"],"reading_time":"2 min read","_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.businessupturn.com\/usa\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/11174","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.businessupturn.com\/usa\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.businessupturn.com\/usa\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.businessupturn.com\/usa\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/28"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.businessupturn.com\/usa\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=11174"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.businessupturn.com\/usa\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/11174\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.businessupturn.com\/usa\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/11175"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.businessupturn.com\/usa\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=11174"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.businessupturn.com\/usa\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=11174"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.businessupturn.com\/usa\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=11174"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}