HELSINKI (AP) — Norway may erect a fence along part or all of the 198-kilometer border it shares with Russia, a minister said. inspired by a similar project in its Nordic neighbor Finland.
“A border fence is very interesting, not only because it can act as a deterrent, but also because it contains sensors and technology that allow you to detect whether people are coming close to the border,” Justice Minister Emilie Enger Mehl said in an interview with That published the Norwegian public broadcaster NRK late Saturday.
She said the Norwegian government is currently exploring “various measures.” increase security at the border with Russia in the Arctic, such as fencing, increasing the number of border staff or intensifying surveillance.
The Storskog border station, which has seen only a handful of illegal border crossing attempts in recent years, is the only official border crossing point into Norway from Russia.
Should the security situation in the fragile Arctic deteriorate, the Norwegian government is prepared to close the border at short notice, said Enger Mehl, who visited neighboring Finland this summer to learn how the entire 1,340-kilometer-long Finnish-Russia land border had been closed .
The Finnish government was prompted to close all border crossings from Russia to Finland by the end of 2023 after more than 1,300 third-country migrants without proper documentation or visas – an unusually high number – entered the country within three months, just months after the country had left the country. joined NATO.
To prevent Moscow from using migrants in what the Finnish government calls Russia’s “hybrid warfare”, Helsinki is currently building fences with a total length of up to 200 kilometers (124 miles) in separate sections along the border zone that is part of NATO’s northern flank and serves as the European Union’s external border.
Finnish border officials say fences equipped with top-of-the-line surveillance equipment – to be placed mainly around border crossings – are needed to better monitor and control migrants trying to cross from Russia and to give officials time to respond.
Inspired by the Finnish project, Enger Mehl said that such a fence could also be a good idea for Norway. According to NRK, her statement was supported by police chief Ellen Katrine Hætta in Norway’s northern province of Finnmark.
“It is a measure that could become relevant on all or part of the border” between Norway and Russia, Enger Mehl said.
The Storskog border station is currently surrounded by a 200-meter-long and 3.5-meter-high fence that was built in 2016 after about 5,000 migrants and asylum seekers crossed from Russia into Norway a year earlier.
