Norway criticizes Finland’s move to quit land mine treaty

Norway will not withdraw from the international convention banning anti-personnel mines like Finland did, Oslo’s Foreign Minister Espen Barth Eide said Wednesday.

Finnish President Alexander Stubb said Tuesday that Helsinki was preparing to quit the 1997 Ottawa Convention — also known as the Anti-Personnel Mine Ban Treaty — in a move designed to mitigate the Russian threat.

"This particular decision [by Finland] is something that we regret," Barth Eide told Reuters in an interview.

"If we start weakening our commitment, it makes it easier for warring factions around the world to use these weapons again, because it reduces the stigma," he added.

The 1997 Ottawa Convention has come under heightened pressure because of the Kremlin's war on Ukraine, especially in countries neighboring Russia, which are wary of expanded aggression from Moscow.

Finland's decision to withdraw from the treaty left Norway as the only European country bordering Russia (the nations share a nearly 200 kilometer-long frontier in the far north) that does not plan to stock land mines again.

On March 18, Poland and the three Baltic countries announced their intention to leave the international convention due to perceived threats to NATO member countries bordering Russia and Belarus.

"We believe that in the current security environment it is paramount to provide our defence forces flexibility and freedom of choice to potentially use new weapons systems and solutions to bolster the defence of the alliance’s vulnerable Eastern flank,” defense ministers from Poland, Estonia, Latvia and Lithuania said in a statement.