Russian President Vladimir Putin arrived on Sunday on his first state visit to Finland, the only EU member bordering his country, for talks focusing on the planned enlargement of the 15-nation bloc and NATO.

Putin, accompanied by his wife Lyudmila, began the two-day visit with a symbolic gesture by arriving in Finland's west coast town of Turku, a sister city to St Petersburg where Putin was deputy mayor in the 1990s. He met President Tarja Halonen for informal talks at the Finnish head of state's nearby summer residence at Naantali. The two leaders made no statements to the media afterwards and Putin flew on to Helsinki for more talks scheduled on Monday. Russian Foreign Minister Ivanov met Finland's Foreign Minister Erkki Tuomioja for talks on bilateral issues, the crisis in Macedonia, and Russia's relations with the Baltic states and the EU, officials said. They also dropped in on a jazz concert. Apart from the European Union's and NATO's enlargement, Putin was expected to discuss cross-border cooperation between Russia and Finland, two former World War Two enemies whose relations in the post-Soviet era are now cordial after decades of uneasy friendship during the Cold War. Another topic was to be the state of reforms in Russia, officials said, and a range of economic issues including a planned pipeline under the Baltic Sea to carry up to 20 billion cubic metres of Russian gas annually to the West.