Foreign Minister Erkki Tuomioja will give the keynote speech at an Arms Trade Treaty seminar in London 

Press Release 243/2014
31 October 2014

Foreign Minister Erkki Tuomioja will visit London on Monday, 3 November. Tuomioja will deliver the keynote speech at the International Parliamentary Seminar on the Arms Trade Treaty.

The seminar will be held at the Parliament of the United Kingdom and is organized by the British Group Inter-Parliamentary Union. The Arms Trade Treaty (ATT) regulating the international trade in conventional arms was under negotiation for nearly a decade. Finland actively participated in negotiations for the Treaty and continues to be active in the Treaty’s initiator countries group.

The ATT was adopted by the UN General Assembly on 2 April 2013. Finland ratified the Treaty in December of the same year. The Arms Trade Treaty will enter into force on Christmas Eve, 24 December 2014. The ratification process for the Treaty has been exceptionally rapid and indicates the will of the UN Member States to regulate the international arms trade and to limit the illegal arms trade.

Foreign Minister Tuomioja will also meet, among others, Under Secretary of State Tobias Ellwod, Minister at the UK Foreign Office responsible for the Middle East. The situation in the Middle East is among the topics for discussion by Ellwood and Tuomioja.

The programme also includes an event for researchers and experts at the European Council on Foreign Relations. In addition, while in London Tuomioja has a lunch meeting with the UK’s leading historians. The theme of the meeting is: “The role of history and historians in conflict management”.

Additional information: Chief of Cabinet Tarja Kangaskorte, mobile tel. +358 40 181 9257; Press Counsellor Pekka Isosomppi, Embassy of Finland in London, tel. +44 7741 249 007; and Päivi Pohjanheimo, Head of the Unit for Central, Western and Southern Europe, mobile tel. +358 40 511 3786.