OSCE PA Leader Urges Russia to Address Migration to Finland Bilaterally

The head of the Organization for Security and Co-Operation in Europe’s Parliamentary Assembly (OSCE PA) told Sputnik he urges Russia to address illegal migrant border crossings into Finland on a bilateral basis before the issue spills into EU-wide relations.

VIENNA (Sputnik), Svetlana Alexandrova – Officials in the northern Russian city of Murmansk estimate up to 20 people cross into Finland through Russia on a daily basis.

"It is still a pending issue between our states. It is better for Russia to find a solution for this problem, if the Russians didn't want to have EU-Russia negotiations," OSCE PA President Ilkka Kanerva said on Saturday.

Russian Ambassador to Finland Alexander Rumyantsev told RIA Novosti earlier this month only over 1,000 asylum seekers crossed into Finland from Russia over the past few months. By comparison, he said over 30,000 refugees came to Finland through Sweden during the same period.

Kanerva stressed that "it would be in the interest of the Russian authorities to find a solution for this tension on the Finnish-Russian level," adding that the issue was "very important in Finland."

In January, Finnish Foreign Minister Timo Soini called for urgent measures to protect the Finnish border from the arrival of asylum seekers through Russia.