Foreign Ministry's press releases

The Ministry for Foreign Affairs annual rotation of Heads of Mission has been completed. Most of the 24 new Heads of Mission took up their positions on 1 September.

Minister for European Affairs and Foreign Trade Alexander Stubb is scheduled to attend the WTO Public Forum in Geneva, Switzerland, on 1 October.

Women’s participation in mediation strengthens the sustainability of peace agreements. Women should be included both as mediators and as heads of negotiation delegations, Foreign Minister Erkki Tuomioja stated in New York.

Only a little over 800 days remain to the deadline for the Millenium Development Goals set in 2000. So that more of the goals would be achieved, this year Finland is giving additional funding to the UN organisation dedicated to gender equality, the UN Population Fund and the United Nations Children’s Fund.

Every seventh person in the world has a disability. Yet the UN Millennium Development Goals make no mention of persons with disabilities, Minister Hautala stated at the UN on Monday. “The world’s new development goals must also take their needs into account.”

Minister for European Affairs and Foreign Trade Alexander Stubb will have served 2,000 days as a minister on Tuesday 24 September.

Minister for Foreign Affairs Erkki Tuomioja and Minister for International Development Heidi Hautala are attending the opening week of the 68th Session of the UN General Assembly in New York on 23–28 September. The events can be followed on the web and Facebook page of the Ministry and on Twitter.

On Friday 20 September, the President of the Republic and the Cabinet Committee on Foreign and Security Policy discussed the situation in the Syrian Arab Republic. The Committee focused on the plan compiled in Geneva by US Secretary of State and Russia's Foreign Minister to place Syria's chemical weapons under international control and destroy them. Finland's capabilities to support this action was also discussed.

A shooting incident involving the EULEX mission in Kosovo, the EU’s largest civilian crisis management operation, took place on 19 September. Finnish police, frontier and customs experts were not involved in the incident.