Finnish president calls for diplomacy for attaining peace in Ukraine

HELSINKI, Nov. 7 (Xinhua) -- Finnish President Sauli Niinisto on Monday underlined the need to assess the possibility of peace in the Ukraine conflict "also elsewhere than on the military front."

Addressing the formal opening of a national defence course for the political, economic, and civil service elite, Niinisto said that he "regards as positive" the pursuit by French President Emmanuel Macron and German Chancellor Olaf Scholz to maintain dialogue with Moscow.

"Peace is such an important goal that we must not save any efforts to attain it," he said.

Niinisto took up the ongoing Finnish discussion about nuclear weapons. "Talk of nuclear weapons has quickly become commonplace in recent days, also here in Finland. I consider this a dangerous development."

Niinisto said he wanted to state explicitly that although Finland does not set any advance restrictions on its upcoming membership in the North Atlantic Treaty Organization (NATO), Finland has no intentions of bringing nuclear weapons to its territory.

Since 1961, each of such course has brought together 50 politicians, civil servants, and representatives of business and industry for three weeks of tuition and socializing.