HELSINKI, June 27 (RIA Novosti) - Russian Foreign Minister Sergei Lavrov said Monday that Russia did not violate Finland's airspace.
"According to our data, Russia did not violate Finland's airspace," Lavrov said.
On May 19 the Finnish Foreign Ministry placed information on its web site accusing the Russian Air Forces of repeatedly violating Finland's airspace while heading for Kaliningrad, a Russian exclave on the Baltic Sea.
"The military must study maps and find a solution to prevent situations like this in the future," Lavrov said after talks with his Finnish counterpart Erkki Tuomioja.
"We understand that keeping this problem in suspense is quite unreasonable, and the prime ministers of our countries have agreed that such issues must be resolved on the military and technical expert level," Lavrov said.
After talks with Finnish Prime Minister Matti Taneli Vanhanen on June 7, Russian Premier Mikhail Fradkov asked the press not to dramatize the situation.
"The problem is superficial, rather than essential. Flight navigation experts can discuss and solve the problem," Fradkov said.
Vanhanen said he doubted that the violation was deliberate.
"We do not think these facts were planned to be provocative," Vanhanen said. "Russian military aircraft proceeded one to three kilometers inside Finish territory."
The Russian Air Force had earlier dismissed the information about its violation of Finnish airspace as incorrect.
"The Russian air service has unbiased aircraft control information it can reveal to the Finnish party at any time," said Colonel Alexander Drobyshevsky, head of the Air Forces' press service.
