Iran Press/ Europe: Russian officials reacted angrily to NATO's offer of membership to Finland and Sweden, calling it a "destabilizing" effort to increase regional tensions.
Russian news agencies quoted Russia's President Vladimir Putin as saying he could not rule out that tensions would emerge in Moscow's relations with Helsinki and Stockholm over their joining NATO.
"We don't have problems with Sweden and Finland as we do with Ukraine," the Russian president told a news conference in the Turkmenistan capital of Ashgabat. "We don't have territorial differences."
"If Finland and Sweden wish to, they can join. That's up to them. They can join whatever they want."
However, he warned, "if military contingents and military infrastructure were deployed there, we would be obliged to respond symmetrically and raise the same threats for those territories where threats have arisen for us."
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