Reuters. U.S. Secretary of State Antony Blinken, Finnish Foreign Minister Elina Valtonen, and Finnish Defense Minister Antti Häkkänen participated in the signing of their new Defence Cooperation Agreement, which will serve as a rulebook for U.S. military presence and aid in Finland, after Russia's Nordic neighbour became the NATO military alliance's newest member earlier this year.
The agreement lists 15 facilities and areas in Finland to which the U.S. military will have unimpeded access and where it can also store military equipment and ammunition.
The areas will include four airbases, a military port and railway access to northern Finland, where the U.S. military will have a storage area alongside a railway that leads up to the Russian border, the agreement showed.
Neighbouring Sweden, which has also asked to join NATO but has been left waiting due to resistance from existing members Turkey and Hungary, signed a similar agreement with the U.S. last week, giving it access to 17 areas, including four air bases, one harbour and five military camps.
