Finland, NATO’s newest member, will sign a defense pact with the United States
Associated PressHELSINKI — NATO’s newest member, Finland, which shares a border with Russia, is to sign a bilateral defense cooperation agreement next week with the United States in a deal that allows Washington to send troops into the Nordic country to bolster its defense and store weapons and military equipment there, among other things. Finnish Foreign Minister Elina Valtonen told a news conference in Helsinki on Thursday that Defense Minister Antti Häkkänen will sign the so-called Defense Cooperation Agreement, or DCA, in Washington on Monday, Dec. 18. The pact, which must still be approved by Finnish lawmakers, “is very significant for Finland’s defense and security,” Häkkänen said, stressing that the deal is judicially binding on both sides. Under the deal, Finland will allow U.S. soldiers access to 15 military areas and facilities covering the entire Nordic nation all the way from a key southern naval base and inland air bases to a vast remote army training area in Lapland, in the Arctic north.