Finland‘s Prime Minister Petteri Orpo said Thursday his country was working with Beijing to find out more about a Chinese ship likely linked to damage of an undersea gas pipeline.
Finnish police have recovered an anchor, believed to be from a Chinese vessel, that appears to have caused the breach in the Baltic Sea pipeline to Estonia this month.
“We are cooperating with China to find out the role of the Chinese ship which was in this area,” Orpo told journalists at an EU summit in Brussels.
“They have promised to do good cooperation with us.”
Helsinki released photographs of underwater tracks, believed to have been produced by a six-tonne anchor being dragged across the seabed and then hitting the Balticconnector pipeline.
It declined to speculate if the damage had been inflicted intentionally.
The authorities confirmed earlier findings pointing to the Hong Kong-flagged Newnew Polar Bear cargo ship.
The police said they had made efforts to reach out to the captain of the ship — which sailed on to Russian waters — but did not get a response.
They were unable to inspect the vessel as it was not within Finnish territorial waters, but had received reports of observations indicating that the vessel’s left bow anchor appears to be missing.
Sweden’s government announced last week that it received information that a telecommunications cable linking Sweden to Estonia had also been damaged, without being able to identify the cause.
The cable is believed to have been damaged at the same time as the Balticconnector pipeline.
The rupture of the pipeline sparked suspicions of Russian involvement at a time of heightened tensions over the war in Ukraine.
Finland this year joined NATO in a major strategic shift that angered the Kremlin. Sweden is also pushing for membership.
NATO chief Jens Stoltenberg has promised a “determined response” if it turns out the pipeline breach was a deliberate attack.
The alliance says it has stepped up patrols in the area.
The latest incidents came just over a year after explosions on the Nord Stream pipelines cut off a major route for Russian gas to Europe.
Officials declared the blasts were “sabotage” but there has still been no definitive answers on who or what was responsible.
