Proposed "major military exercise" called into question

President Sauli Niinistö on Monday took distance from an announcement made earlier by Defense Minister Jussi Niinistö that the Nordic country is going to organize the biggest military exercise since the end of the Cold War.

Jussi Niinistö published the project late last week and said the exercise is open to international participation. He also told reporters he would inform the visiting U.S. defense chief James Mattis and Northern European defense ministers during meetings in Helsinki on Monday and Tuesday.

But Niinistö told a press conference on Monday that the "possible exercise" would be a normal maneuver arranged typically when the tour of duty of the year's conscripts comes to a close. Finland has a national service system requiring male citizens to serve for six to twelve months.

Finnish national broadcaster Yle reported that the defense minister had "outflanked" the president in starting the preparations.

Niinistö declined to comment on the size of the would-be exercise "until it has been discussed in parliament". He noted that, as the exercise has been planned for 2020, it will be an issue for the parliament elected in 2019 and a new defense minister to discuss. However, it could be discussed in the current parliament as well.

Niinistö told international media on Monday that it was "an issue of semantics." In Finland, the president is the commander-in-chief and the commanding top general reports to him. The Ministry of Defense has a planning and budgeting role.

Max Arhippainen, head of information at the Ministry of Defense, told Xinhua that major exercises are given a go-ahead in the government's security policy group, attended by select ministers and the president.