Foreign Minister Haavisto to attend a nuclear disarmament meeting in Berlin

On 25 February, Minister for Foreign Affairs Pekka Haavisto will travel to Berlin to attend the Second Ministerial Meeting of the Stockholm Initiative on Nuclear Disarmament and the Nuclear Non-Proliferation Treaty (NPT), hosted by the German Minister of Foreign Affairs. During the visit, Foreign Minister Haavisto will have a separate meeting with Germany’s Minister of Foreign Affairs Heiko Maas.

The Berlin Ministerial Meeting on Nuclear Disarmament is a follow-on from the Ministerial Meeting held in Stockholm in June 2019. Its final declaration committed the participating ministers to promote nuclear disarmament and nuclear non-proliferation. In 2019, ministers also expressed concern over the escalation of international tensions and the resulting decline of the international treaty system. The aim is to secure the success of the NPT Review Conference scheduled for spring 2020 in New York.

At the meeting in Berlin, ministers will adopt a declaration to strengthen the NPT and to promote nuclear disarmament, as well as a proposal for concrete Stepping Stones to make progress in the implementation of the Treaty. The following 16 countries participate in the Initiative: Argentina, Canada, Ethiopia, Finland, Germany, Indonesia, Japan, Jordan, Kazakhstan, Netherlands, Norway, South Korea, Spain, Sweden, Switzerland and New Zealand.

At their meeting, Minister Maas and Minister Haavisto will discuss issues related to nuclear disarmament and the bilateral relations between Finland and Germany, the situation in the Middle East, and transatlantic relations.

Inquiries: Jeri Aalto, Special Adviser to the Minister for Foreign Affairs, tel. +358 50 472 0725 and Ambassador Jarmo Viinanen, tel. +358 50 9113368

The Foreign Ministry’s email addresses are in the format [email protected].