Finland's president defends decisions to buy Israeli arms, not recognise Palestinian state

By Anne Kauranen

HELSINKI (Reuters) - Finland's President Alexander Stubb defended his country's decision to buy arms from Israel despite the war in Gaza, saying it had no link to Finland's unwillingness to recognise an independent Palestinian state at the present time.

Finland is acquiring a ground based, high altitude, missile defence system called David's Sling from Israel. Helsinki considers the system a high priority for its own defence due to neighbouring Russia's ongoing missile attacks on civilian and military targets in Ukraine.

Stubb, who took office in March, has defined his and Finland's new foreign policy stance as "values-based realism", which he has said was about "achieving things in the world as it is", instead of "promoting only the world how I want to see it".

In an interview with Reuters on Tuesday, Stubb said the time was not right to recognise a Palestinian state, even though its Nordic neighbours, Sweden, Iceland, and most recently Norway, have done so.

"In the case of Israel and Palestine, values-based realism is prevalent in our thinking on the recognition of Palestine in the sense that we want that recognition, not if, but when it happens, to have an impact towards a two-state solution and a peaceful solution," he said.

Last month, Stubb told Finnish diplomats that Finland's recognition of a Palestinian state was "a matter of time" and that the right time would be picked strategically to promote peace in the Middle East.

He said the decision had "nothing to do with" the arms deal with Israel.

"In that one, I only look at realism, in other words, the fact that we need those weapons. So that's when I look at Finnish security."

(Reporting by Anne Kauranen in Helsinki; Editing by Sharon Singleton)