On nuclear policy, Koizumi agrees with Finnish defense chief: Japan ‘must not be naive’

Defense Minister Shinjiro Koizumi and his Finnish counterpart, Antti Hakkanen, inspect an honor guard before their meeting at the Defense Ministry in Tokyo on Monday. | AFP-JIJI

Oct 27, 2026

Defense Minister Shinjiro Koizumi on Tuesday said he had discussed Finland’s decision to allow nuclear weapons onto its soil with the Nordic country’s defense chief during a meeting a day earlier, as Japan weighs a similar policy shift.

Koizumi held talks Monday with Finnish Defense Minister Antti Hakkanen, with the pair agreeing to beef up defense cooperation hours after the two countries inked a defense equipment and technology transfer agreement.

But the Japanese defense chief said that their discussion of Helsinki’s revision in March of a decades-old law allowing nuclear weapons into Finland — a policy shift that Tokyo is also considering by potentially revising its “three nonnuclear principles” — had struck a chord with him.

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