Foreign Ministry's press releases

Visa Application Centres in Xi'an, Chongqing, Hangzhou, Guangzhou and eight other cities bring the service closer to the clients.

President of the Republic Sauli Niinistö will attend the international Nuclear Security Summit in Washington on 31 March – 1 April. The summit will be hosted by Barack Obama, President of the United States.

Finland and Russia have agreed that the border crossing points of Salla and Raja-Jooseppi in Northern Finland may only be used by Finnish, Russian and Belarusian citizens and their family members.

The Ministry for Foreign Affairs has set up a network consisting of invited 21 experts specialising in human rights policy matters to discuss related issues in the current Government term.

Minister for Foreign Trade and Development Lenita Toivakka will travel to St Petersburg to meet the co-chair of the Finnish-Russian Intergovernmental Commission for Economic Cooperation on Tuesday, 29 March. Minister Toivakka co-chairs the Finnish-Russian Intergovernmental Commission for Economic Cooperation together with Russian Deputy Prime Minister Dmitry Kozak.

Nordic Day is celebrated on 23 March. Nordic Day, the main event during Finland’s Presidency of the Nordic Council of Ministers in 2016, will be a whole-day Pop Up Pohjola event at the Kamppi Shopping Center. Organising Nordic Day at Kamppi brings the festivities near to commuting citizens. Regional events will be organised, too, for example in Vaasa.

The Ministry for Foreign Affairs is currently preparing the Report on Finnish Foreign and Security Policy in cooperation with the Prime Minister's Office, the Ministry of Defence, the Ministry of the Interior and the Office of the President of the Republic. The Ministry for Foreign Affairs and local partners of cooperation will co-organise four seminars where the themes of the report can be discussed.

Minister for Foreign Affairs Timo Soini will meet Turkish Minister for EU Affairs Volkan Bozkir in Helsinki on Wednesday, 23 March. The topics of the meeting will include several topical matters, such as EU cooperation to manage the migration and refugee crisis, Turkey's EU membership process, the Syria crisis, and the reunification negotiations of Cyprus.

Tuesday, 22 March marks the annual UN World Water Day. World Water Day will be celebrated at the House of the Estates (Snellmaninkatu 9–11) in Helsinki by a wider and more international event than before. The seminars belong to the programme of the Finnish Presidency of the Council of Ministers, whose one main theme is water.

Minister for Foreign Affairs Timo Soini will visit London, where he will hold bilateral discussions with UK Foreign Secretary Philip Hammond on Monday, 21 March.