She was asked about the recent controversy over a US diplomatic cable published by Wikileaks that gave details of a meeting between Halonen and then-President of Russia Vladimir Putin in 2004.
The cable said that Lipponen, Viinanen and head of the Foreign Ministry’s Russia unit Olli Perheentupa had met the US ambassador and given him information about Halonen’s meeting. Halonen said that she had discussed Wikileaks cable with both Viinanen and Lipponen, and had decided there was nothing reproachable about their actions.
According to YLE’s sources, Lipponen does not remember the meeting, and has not found evidence of it in his diary from 2004.
“Not everything Wikileaks publishes is true,” Halonen told journalists at a conference about the Baltic Sea in Helsinki.
President Halonen also met the Parliament's Foreign Affairs Committee on Thursday morning. On Wednesday, the Parliament had discussed the Wikileaks revelations. MPs on the committee decried the fact that the US ambassador was better informed about the president's meetings than they were, but Halonen saw nothing in her meeting with Putin that the Parliament needed to be informed about.
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