Putin to meet Stoltenberg in Finland
Russian Prime Minister Vladimir Putin is in Helsinki on Wednesday to talk environment with his Nordic and Baltic counterparts. Afterwards, a private meeting with Norway’s Jens Stoltenberg follows.
Finland’s President Tarja Halonen and Prime Minister Matti Vanhanen host the meeting when Vladimir Putin, Sweden’s King Carl XVI Gustaf and the Norwegian Prime Minister Jens Stoltenberg comes to the Baltic Sea Action Summit in Helsinki today.
The aim of the summit is to bring together the public and private players operating in the area and for them to commit themselves to concrete measures to the benefit of the Baltic Sea, reports Helsingin Sanomat.
Among the issues on the agenda will be Russia’s plans to build the Nord Stream pipeline, intended to bring gas from both Siberia, and later on the Barents Sea Shtokman field, to Germany and by that the European marked.
After the Summit, Vladimir Putin and Jens Stoltenberg will have a bi-lateral Norwegian–Russian meeting. The meeting this afternoon is the first of two important top meetings this year. BarentsObserver has earlier reported that President Dmitri Medvedev will visit Oslo later this spring, the first Presidential visit to Norway since 2002.
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Last week, the Norwegian Foreign Minister Jonas Gahr Støre met with his Russian counterpart Sergey Lavrov in Moscow. Like at last week’s meeting between the Foreign Ministers, today’s meeting between Putin and Stoltenberg will also have the two countries cooperation in the Barents Region on the agenda.
Jens Stoltenberg told Norwegian reporters this morning that energy will be an important issue on the agenda in his meeting with Vladimir Putin. The Norwegian oil major Statoil is together with French Total partner with Gazprom in the Shtokman Development AG. Last week, Shtokman Development AG’s board of directors decided to postpond the development of the huge gas field in the Barents Sea with three years, as reported by BarentsObserver.
In addition to cooperation within energy, Norway and Russia have the unresolved negotiations regarding the two countries disputed area in the Barents Sea. But, this issue is not officially said to be on the agenda at Wednesday’s meeting between the two Prime Ministers in Helsinki.
Another interesting issue in bi-literal talks between Norway and Russia is the proposed visa-free travel regime in the near-border areas including the Norwegian border town of Kirkenes and the Russian border towns of Nikel and Zapolyarny on the Kola Peninsula.
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When Norwegian Prime Minister Jens Stoltenberg visited Moscow in May 2009, Russian Prime Minister Vladimir Putin told the press that he had noted the positive progress in cross-border cooperation between Norway and Russia in the north and that the two countries’ governments were preparing an agreement that would enhance this progress even more by making traveling across the border easier, as reported by BarentsObserver.
