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HELSINKI, May 17 (AP) \u2014 Russia has frozen the bank accounts of Finland\u2019s diplomatic representations in Moscow and St. Petersburg, disrupting money flow and forcing the country\u2019s missions to resort to cash payments, the Finnish foreign minister said Wednesday.<\/p>\n
Pekka Haavisto said Moscow\u2019s move at the end of April breaches the Vienna Convention on Diplomatic Relations and Helsinki has delivered a diplomatic note on the matter to Russia.<\/p>\n
\u201cWe\u2019re not alone with the money traffic problem,\u201d Haavisto told reporters during a news conference. \u201cAlso some other European Union nations have encountered problems with money traffic in Russia. But according to our information, restrictions on Finland are among the tightest.\u201d<\/p>\n
He said Moscow\u2019s measure affects, among other things, payment of rents, electricity and water bills by the Finnish Embassy in Moscow and the Consulate General in St. Petersburg, which now have to rely on their cash assets.<\/p>\n
The move does not, however, affect salary payments to staff and there is no risk of a closure of Finland\u2019s diplomatic missions in Russia, Haavisto said.<\/p>\n
Earlier this year, Finland temporarily closed its diplomatic missions in the Russian Arctic city of Murmansk and the city of Petrozavodsk in the Karelia region \u2014 both not far from the Finnish border.<\/p>\n
Haavisto \u2014 the caretaker foreign minister as the new Finnish government is currently under formation \u2014 stressed that current EU sanctions on Moscow aren\u2019t directed at Russia\u2019s embassies and consulates and Helsinki hasn\u2019t frozen the bank accounts of Russia\u2019s diplomatic missions in Finland.<\/p>\n
He didn\u2019t see the move as linked to Finland\u2019s recent membership in NATO but rather to Russia\u2019s ongoing war in Ukraine.<\/p>\n
Finland joined NATO last month as the 31st member of the alliance, a historic move after decades of military nonalignment. Finland shares a 1,340 kilometer (830-mile) border with Russia, the longest of any EU member.<\/p>\n
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HELSINKI, May 17 (AP) \u2014 Russia has frozen the bank accounts of Finland\u2019s diplomatic representations in Moscow and St. Petersburg, disrupting money flow and forcing the country\u2019s missions to resort to cash payments, the Finnish foreign minister said Wednesday. Pekka Haavisto said Moscow\u2019s move at the end of April breaches the Vienna Convention on Diplomatic […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"closed","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[15],"tags":[],"class_list":{"0":"post-216421","1":"post","2":"type-post","3":"status-publish","4":"format-standard","6":"category-world"},"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/arunachaltimes.in\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/216421","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/arunachaltimes.in\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/arunachaltimes.in\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/arunachaltimes.in\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/arunachaltimes.in\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=216421"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/arunachaltimes.in\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/216421\/revisions"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/arunachaltimes.in\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=216421"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/arunachaltimes.in\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=216421"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/arunachaltimes.in\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=216421"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}