{"id":1276,"date":"2016-10-19T22:56:26","date_gmt":"2016-10-19T22:56:26","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/blogs.plymouth.ac.uk\/dcss\/?p=1276"},"modified":"2016-10-19T22:56:57","modified_gmt":"2016-10-19T22:56:57","slug":"minister-of-defence-of-finland-we-should-re-examine-the-demilitarisation-of-the-aland-island","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/blogs.plymouth.ac.uk\/dcss\/2016\/10\/19\/minister-of-defence-of-finland-we-should-re-examine-the-demilitarisation-of-the-aland-island\/","title":{"rendered":"MINISTER OF DEFENCE OF FINLAND : WE SHOULD RE-EXAMINE THE DEMILITARISATION OF THE ALAND ISLANDS"},"content":{"rendered":"

\"aland-islands\"<\/a><\/p>\n

Source: Uusi Suomi<\/p>\n

By : Aleksi Teivainen<\/p>\n

Jussi Niinist\u00f6, the Minister of Defence, has called for a re-examination of the demilitarisation of \u00c5land. Niinist\u00f6 stated in an interview on YLE TV1 on Saturday that the demilitarised status of the autonomous string of islands outside the south-western coast of Finland could be re-examined, for example, in the context of the ongoing discussion about defence co-operation between Finland and Sweden.<\/p>\n

The demilitarisation, he estimated, has a detrimental effect on the ability of Finland to fulfil its responsibility to defend the \u00c5land Islands.<\/p>\n

Jukka Tarkka, a researcher and non-fiction author, says he is delighted with the fact that Niinist\u00f6 seems to not be afraid to examine the national security situation in light of historical evidence and recent events in the adjoining territories.<\/p>\n

\u201cThat’s the kind of security thinking we need now,\u201d he writes in his personal blog.<\/p>\n

His assessment is echoed by Charly Salonius-Pasternak, a researcher at the Finnish Institute of International Affairs.<\/p>\n

\u201cNiinist\u00f6 made some good remarks about \u00c5land. No country would be willing to approve of a defence obligation with similar limitations when it comes to preparations,\u201d he tweeted on Sunday.<\/p>\n

Both Salonius-Pasternak and Tarkka have commented regularly on the position of the \u00c5land Islands. Tarkka estimated recently that the islands would be a priority for any nearby military power in the event of a conflict in the Baltic Sea Region. \u201c\u00c5land has been re-militarised after being stripped of arms whenever a war has broken out in the Baltic Sea,\u201d he pointed out.<\/p>\n

Salonius-Pasternak, in turn, said last year the demilitarisation and non-alignment of the \u00c5land Islands should be opened to debate especially because of recent changes in the security environment of Finland.<\/p>\n

Niinist\u00f6 contrastively received no support for his views from Mats L\u00f6fstr\u00f6m (\u00c5land Centre), the lone Member of the Finnish Parliament from \u00c5land.<\/p>\n

\u201cAs the de-militarised status of \u00c5land has been set forth in international treaties, which neither Finland nor Sweden can amend, it is rather harmful to call into question the demilitarisation in an attempt to score political points,\u201d he commented.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

Source: Uusi Suomi By : Aleksi Teivainen Jussi Niinist\u00f6, the Minister of Defence, has called for a re-examination of the demilitarisation of \u00c5land. Niinist\u00f6 stated in an interview on YLE TV1 on Saturday that the demilitarised status of the autonomous string of islands outside the south-western coast of Finland could be re-examined, for example, in… Continue reading MINISTER OF DEFENCE OF FINLAND : WE SHOULD RE-EXAMINE THE DEMILITARISATION OF THE ALAND ISLANDS<\/span><\/a><\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":1277,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[6],"tags":[1046,1047,1045],"class_list":["post-1276","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","hentry","category-security-and-strategy","tag-aland-islands","tag-baltic-sea-region","tag-jussi-niinisto","entry"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/blogs.plymouth.ac.uk\/dcss\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/1276","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/blogs.plymouth.ac.uk\/dcss\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/blogs.plymouth.ac.uk\/dcss\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/blogs.plymouth.ac.uk\/dcss\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/1"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/blogs.plymouth.ac.uk\/dcss\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=1276"}],"version-history":[{"count":2,"href":"https:\/\/blogs.plymouth.ac.uk\/dcss\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/1276\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":1279,"href":"https:\/\/blogs.plymouth.ac.uk\/dcss\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/1276\/revisions\/1279"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/blogs.plymouth.ac.uk\/dcss\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/1277"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/blogs.plymouth.ac.uk\/dcss\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=1276"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/blogs.plymouth.ac.uk\/dcss\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=1276"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/blogs.plymouth.ac.uk\/dcss\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=1276"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}