"Poland gladly welcomes your bid to join NATO, in my country there is a political consensus to proceed with ratification as soon as possible," Poland's Minister of Foreign Affairs Zbigniew Rau said on Friday during his visit to Helsinki. In his opinion, Finland's accession to NATO " will strengthen the Alliance and significantly increase safety and political stability in the area of the Baltic Sea". Rau also stressed the importance of imposing further sanctions on Russia.
Chief of Poland's Ministry of Foreign Affairs Zbigniew Rau visited Helsinki on Friday, where he was greeted by Finland's President Sauli Niinisto, met with his Finnish counterpart Pekka Haavisto as well as with Minister of European Affairs and Ownership Steering Tytti Tuppurainen.
At a joint press conference held with the head of Finnish diplomacy, Rau underscored that his first visit to Finland as a minister came in an extremely important moment, namely after the NATO summit in Madrid at which Finland had been officially invited to the North-Atlantic Alliance.
"Poland gladly welcomes your bid to join NATO, in my country there is a political consensus to proceed with ratification as soon as possible. I'm certain that your accession will strengthen the Alliance and significantly increase safety and political stability in the area of the Baltic Sea," he said.
Rau reminded that ever since Russia attacked Ukraine, Europe had found itself in a new strategic situation. "Russia can no longer be considered a partner," he said. "The Russian regime should be isolated from the international community and economy. The existing sanctions are insufficient, we must continue to work on a new package of restricting measures," the minister stressed.
He also thanked Finland for its solidarity with Ukraine and support for the war-torn country. He also praised very good bilateral cooperation between Poland and Finland regarding security and defence issues. Rau also said that trade betweeb the two countries last year amounted to 4.3 billion euro.
Finland's Minister of Foreign Affairs Pekka Haavisto said that he and Rau also discussed cooperation within the European Union and the OSCE. He stressed that Poland and Finland both condemned Russian aggression on Ukraine. He also praised Poland's solidarity with the Ukrainians, which was manifested by Poland by hosting millions of war refugees.
Haavisto also said that Finland took in more than 20,000 Ukrainian refugees and that his country earmarked 70 million euro for rebuilding Ukraine.
Źródło: TVN24 News in English, PAP