Finland has “completely” ruled out hosting a peace summit between America and Russia, distancing itself from any Donald Trump plan to swiftly end the war in Ukraine if he is re-elected.
In an interview with The Telegraph, Elina Valtonen, Finland’s foreign minister, said she would not host any peace talks in the capital, which was the venue for the Cold War-era Helsinki Accords of 1975 and more recently the 2018 Trump-Putin summit.
She said Finland was fully in support of Ukraine’s peace objectives and would only host a summit if Russia showed it was willing to negotiate in good faith, which at this stage looked highly doubtful.
“Like almost everybody else in Europe, we don’t have any political dialogue with Russia at the moment and we are not looking to open any dialogue either, for as long as Russia keeps invading sovereign nations in its neighbourhood,” Ms Valtonen said.
“So that would be the answer in this situation, I would completely rule out such discussions taking place in Helsinki, if there wasn’t a significant move from the side of Russia showing that they want to go back to valuing and respecting international law.”