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HELSINKI, July 13 – U.S. President Joe Biden held talks with Nordic leaders at Finland’s presidential palace on Thursday, visiting NATO’s newest member directly after knocking Russian President Vladimir Putin at a summit a day earlier.<\/p>\n\n\n\n
Biden travelled to Finland, which shares a border with Russia, straight from this week’s NATO talks in Vilnius, Lithuania to participate in a U.S.-Nordic summit with the leaders of Finland, Sweden, Denmark, Iceland and Norway.<\/p>\n\n\n\n
He will also hold a joint news conference with Finland’s President Sauli Niinisto before heading back to Washington.<\/p>\n\n\n\n
Finland’s decision to join NATO broke with seven decades<\/a> of military non-alignment and roughly doubled the length of the border NATO shares with Russia.<\/p>\n\n\n\n The country repelled<\/a> an attempted Soviet invasion during World War Two but lost territory. It maintained accommodating relations with Russia until Putin’s Ukraine invasion.<\/p>\n\n\n\n Ahead of a bilateral meeting with Niinisto, Biden hailed Finland’s as an “incredible asset” to the NATO military alliance.<\/p>\n\n\n\n “I don’t think NATO has ever been stronger,” he told reporters at the palace. “Together we’re standing for shared democratic values.”<\/p>\n\n\n\n Niinisto said Finland’s NATO membership heralded “a new era in our security”, and applauded Biden for “creating unity” at the Vilnius summit which focused on uniting behind Ukraine.<\/p>\n\n\n\n A White House official said that during the meetings Biden would also welcome Sweden’s prospective entry to NATO, after Turkish President Tayyip Erdogan dropped objections<\/a> to its application this week.<\/p>\n\n\n\n Sweden had applied to join NATO alongside Finland, but its bid was held up by Turkey, which says Sweden is doing too little against people Ankara sees as terrorists.<\/p>\n\n\n\n “We’re seeing a total change to the European security structure as a result of Russia’s move and the Nordic countries writ large have moved closer to the West in response to Russia’s aggressive and destabilising actions,” the White House official said.<\/p>\n\n\n\n