Sweden will allow nuclear missiles to be deployed on its soil if it joins NATO

Should his country join NATO then nuclear missiles can be deployed in Sweden said the country’s new Prime Minister, Ulf Kristersson.

Ulf Kristersson, who took over as the new Prime Minister of Sweden two weeks ago announced today, Tuesday, November 1, that should his country become a member of NATO then he was open to allowing nuclear missiles to be based on Swedish soil.

Speaking at a joint press conference in Helsinki, accompanied by Sanna Marin, his Finnish counterpart, Kristersson displayed an incredibly different stance from his predecessor. Both countries are currently waiting for approval to join the Atlantic alliance.

“We shouldn’t put any preconditions, We have decided that we don’t want to close any doors for the future”, responded Marin when asked whether nuclear weapons would be allowed to be deployed in their two nations. 

“You will receive exactly the same answer from me as from the Finnish prime minister. It’s very natural for Sweden and Finland to act very jointly in these matters and have exactly the same formalisation. So I have no other intention than going hand-in-hand also in this sense with Finland”, added the Swedish PM.

It was quickly established by both officials that such a decision would have to be negotiated at a later date. Presently, Finnish law actually prohibits the importation, manufacture, possession, and detonation of nuclear explosives.

When Sweden submitted the application in May to join NATO, the Social Democratic party government was running the country. At the time, the party stressed that it had: “unilateral reservations against the deployment of nuclear weapons and permanent bases on Swedish territory”, and would work on keeping it that way, as reported by insiderpaper.com.

Permission for foreign countries to locate either nuclear weapons or permanent military bases on their soil during peacetime was previously refused by both existing NATO members Denmark and Norway. Both Nordic nations share borders with neighbouring Finland and Sweden.

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