The October 27 publication by the British Financial Times about the conversation between Norwegian Prime Minister Jonas Gahr Store and Finnish President Alexander Stubb with Vladimir Putin contains inaccurate claims, and Oslo has asked the newspaper to correct the material. Store told the TV2 channel this.
The article, in particular, said that the Russian leader allegedly devoted most of the conversation to "lectures on medieval Slavic history." Citing unnamed sources, the newspaper claimed that the leaders of the two countries had to listen to a long speech about the root causes of the conflict instead of discussing the most important issues about ending it.
"This is wrong. And we asked the Financial Times to correct it, because it is not true," Store said.
According to him, Putin set out his position on the current situation and analyzed events from 2014 to the present. The politician stressed that the newspaper's claim turned out to be simply incorrect. He also disagreed that he and Stubb were not given enough opportunity to speak.
"I think the time was distributed fairly evenly. We used approximately the same amount of time," Store added.
The Norwegian publication VG, which contacted the Financial Times, reports that the newspaper does not intend to correct the factual error in the article.
"The newspaper said it does not intend to make changes," the publication says.
On Tuesday, the Russian president discussed the topic of the peace process by telephone with Stubb and Store. Putin noted that achieving a long-term agreement is possible only with full consideration of Moscow's legitimate interests. In addition, he drew attention to the confrontational policy of EU and NATO countries, which is leading to a prolongation of hostilities.