Newly-elected Finnish President Alexander Stubb said Nato's ongoing military exercise in the Nordics sends a message to Russia that the defence alliance has the ability to act if a member country were attacked.
Stubb made the comments at a press conference in northern Norway, where he and Norwegian PM Jonas Gahr Støre were observing Nato's Nordic Response drills on Thursday.
However, Stubb and Støre said they do not think it is likely that Russia would threaten their countries.
Stubb said that was mainly due to Nato's Article 5, the alliance's collective defence clause. He noted that training for different scenarios should be carried out, adding that he did not think a Russian attack was likely.
Stubb also said that Finland is hoping that the Netherlands' outgoing prime minister Mark Rutte becomes Nato's next Secretary-General. Rutte has already received the support of the alliance's larger member states.
According to Stubb, Finland will decide about its nuclear weapons policy through consensus in Parliament. The topic of nuclear weapons was raised around the time Finland joined the alliance, which uses the nuclear deterrent as a core part of its policy.
A survey last year found that the majority of people in Finland did not support transporting or storing Nato's nuclear weapons in the country.
The Finnish president did not however comment about revelations published in a new memoir about a Finnish peacekeeper's experiences alleging incidents of racism and sexual abuse during a UN crisis management mission in Chad.
13 countries, 20,000 troops
The Finnish president's visit began in the morning with Stubb and Støre visiting a field hospital in Atla in Norwegian Lapland. The mobile medical facility featured operating theatres and specialist doctors.
Troops from Nato allies and partner countries are taking part in the Nordic Response exercise to practice operations in Arctic conditions across northern Finland, Norway and Sweden.
"If someone had told me two years ago that the president of Finland would make his first working visit to Nato exercises a week after his inauguration, I wouldn't have believed it," Stubb told news agency AP after his inauguration last Friday.
Some 20,000 soldiers from 13 countries are taking part, including just over 4,000 from Finland.
The exercise marks Finland's first collective defence drill as a Nato member.
Stubb and Gahr Støre observed field exercises and met with troops in the Alta area, some 300km west of Finland’s northernmost municipality, Utsjoki.
Finnish presidents and prime ministers have traditionally made their first foreign visits to Sweden, which joined the other Nordic countries in Nato later in the day on Thursday.
Hungary's President Tamas Sulyok finally signed his country's long-delayed approval of Swedish membership on Tuesday. Finland and Sweden applied to join the alliance together in May 2022, with Finland becoming a member last April.
Edited at 18:38 on 7 March 2024 to add Stubb comments from press conference.
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