Støre: Local police must talk together
- It will be difficult to manage a more open border if the local police don’t have easy access to each other, says Norway’s Foreign Minister Jonas Gahr Støre.
BarentsObserver reported last week about the lack of contacts between the local police on each side of the border.
Kirkenes, Nikel and Zapolyarny are the three local towns to be included in the new visa-free travel zone between Norway and Russia in the north.
Police Chief in Eastern Finnmark, Håkon Skulstad, told BarentsObserver that there have been no meetings between the police bosses in Kirkenes and Pechenga.
- If we can’t handle smaller or larger challenges, then we can’t say it will be only positive that more people cross the border, Jonas Gahr Støre told the audience at the Kirkenes conference last week.
- Over time, it can’t be so that the Chief of Police on our side of the border can’t have as easy access to his colleagues on the other side (Russia) as he has to his Finnish, Swedish or other European colleagues. That is a clear message, Støre said.
The Norwegian Foreign Minister assured that he will bring up the issue when he meets his Russian counterpart Sergei Lavrov in Kaliningrad on March 7th.
- When more people cross the border, it must be good agreements on cooperation, Støre said.
Norway is the first Schengen country to open its border to Russia for non-visa travel for citizens living in a 30 kilometres zone from the border. The deal was signed last November by the two countries Foreign Ministers, Jonas Gahr Støre and Sergei Lavrov, and is supposed to enter force from early 2012.
