Today, a new round of talks began between negotiators from Russia and the United States in Helsinki on the issue of limiting nuclear weapons, according to Finnish officials.
The two powers are discussing the future of the New START Treaty, a treaty limiting strategic nuclear weapons, which is due to expire in February.
The meeting in Helsinki is expected to last one day. It is led by the US arms control envoy, Marshall Billingsley, and Russian Deputy Foreign Minister Sergey Ryabkov.
The two sides met recently in Vienna, while the Finnish capital hosted a similar session in 2017.
The office of Finnish President Sauli Niinistö said that the president is expected to meet the negotiators after their talks.
It is noteworthy that Finland is no stranger to the role of hosting talks between the United States and Russia, as it hosted a summit between US President Donald Trump and his Russian counterpart Vladimir Putin in 2018.
Niinistö meets regularly with Putin, and he also met Trump at the White House.
In the early 1970s, Finland hosted the Conference on Security and Cooperation, which resulted in the signing of the Helsinki Law in 1975.
Among the signatories were then-US President Gerald Ford and Soviet leader Leonid Brezhnev, who met separately to discuss reducing strategic nuclear weapons.
Helsinki was - in the years 1985 and 1996 - the seat of bilateral meetings between the foreign ministers of the two major nuclear powers.
