Finnish President Martti Ahtisaari said that "Finland's official position is that it does not have territorial demands on Russia. However, if Russia wants to discuss returning the ceded areas, Finland is ready for that." Several other politicians holding government office, such as the former foreign minister Erkki Tuomioja and prime minister Matti Vanhanen, have made statements along the same lines. When commenting on poll results on 18 January 2005, the Foreign Minister of Russia Sergei Lavrov stated that if Russia were to be asked to return the ceded areas, "the answer would be absolutely negative". Polls and popular opinion The latest polls show that approximately 26% to 38% of Finns would like to see Karelia return to Finnish control and some 51% to 62% would oppose such a move. In Russia, people associate the word "Karelia" with the Republic of Karelia instead of Finnish Karelia, which makes conducting polls more difficult. In a 1999 poll by MTV3, 34% of the people of Vyborg supported returning Karelia to Finland and 57% were opposed. Vyborg and the rest of the ceded Karelia outside the Republic of Karelia nowadays contain very few ethnic Finns, and is almost exclusively inhabited by people who moved there during the Soviet era and their descendants. In a poll conducted by the newspaper Karjala and the research institute MC-Info Oy on 13 October 2005, 36% of Finns supported the return of ceded territories, compared to 51% who are opposed. In August 2005, a poll by Helsingin Sanomat and Suomen Gallup, determined that 30% of Finns supported and 62% opposed the return. In a poll by Taloustutkimus and Karjalan Liitto conducted in May 2005, support was 26% while 58% were opposed. A year earlier, a poll by STT showed 38% supporting and 57% opposing. A poll by Taloustutkimus was criticized by ProKarelia for asking leading questions, such as, "Do you support the return of Karelia, even if it would mean more tense relations or even war with Russia?" 5% of supporters and of those who declined to respond supported the return even under these circumstances (2.1% of all replies). Many of the people who were born in Karelia and were evacuated want Karelia to become part of Finland. According to polls, older people (ages 65 and up) and young people (15-25) support the idea more strongly than the generation of their parents (25–65) who grew up during the Cold