Latvia would host NATO nuclear weapons if alliance decides, president says

Latvia would support deploying nuclear weapons on its territory if NATO decided to do so, President Edgars Rinkēvičs told reporters at a news conference on Wednesday, though he said no such talks are currently under way. He said Latvia's government and parliament would accept such a decision if NATO made it, and that the country faces no legal restriction preventing it.

Rinkēvičs also said Latvia currently has no evidence that Russia might directly invade a NATO member state, speaking to reporters after a meeting with Prime Minister Andris Kulbergs. He pointed to Estonia's confirmation a day earlier that a fire at the defence company Milrem Robotics in Tallinn last month was an act of sabotage orchestrated by Russian special services, saying similar reports of Russian sabotage had emerged in other countries, and that Latvian authorities were treating the threat of hybrid attacks, such as cyberattacks and sabotage, with a high degree of responsibility.

Latvia has no constitutional or legal barrier to hosting nuclear weapons, Rinkēvičs said. That puts it in a different position from Lithuania, whose constitution currently bans weapons of mass destruction or foreign military bases on its territory; Lithuania's parliament, the Seimas, passed a first vote this month to remove that ban.

Rinkēvičs said that when Latvia was preparing to join NATO in 2003, each member state confirmed it would face no restriction on taking part in the alliance's full collective security mechanism, including its nuclear deterrence system. Latvia already sits under NATO's nuclear umbrella, provided by the United States and the United Kingdom, he said.

Asked about a British offer of nuclear protection to members of the Joint Expeditionary Force, a coalition that includes the Baltic states, the Nordic countries and the Netherlands, Rinkēvičs said Latvia viewed additional security measures positively, while stressing that they remained part of NATO's wider policy.

The British offer was raised on Monday when Royal Navy Commander General Gwyn Jenkins visited Finland and met Heikki Autto, chair of the Finnish parliament's defence committee, who said Finland would fall under a nuclear umbrella guaranteed by submarines patrolling the Atlantic, according to Finnish news agency STT. A new Joint Expeditionary Force combat unit, grouping ten countries including Latvia and due to be agreed in November, will have its own wartime defence plans, the reports said.