Foreign Ministry's press releases

Minister for Foreign Affairs Erkki Tuomioja will attend the Foreign Ministerial Meeting for countries participating in the NATO-led International Security Assistance Force (ISAF) in Afghanistan. The meeting will be held in Brussels on 5 December. The issues on the agenda will be the present security situation in Afghanistan, support for Afghan security forces after 2014, and the current situation in planning ISAF’s follow-up mission.

Minister for European Affairs and Foreign Trade Alexander Stubb’s last Team Finland trip this year to promote exports and internationalisation of Finnish companies will be made to Algeria on 4 to 6 December. Stubb will be accompanied by 17 Finnish businesses and other actors representing a range of sectors.

MSc (Techn.), Master of Public Administration Päivi Nikander has been appointed as Deputy Head of Mission in Organisation for Security and Cooperation in Europe (OSCE) Field Operations Mission to Kosovo as of 7 January 2013.

Today, on 27 November, Minister for International Development Heidi Hautala opened an international two-day conference on socially and environmentally responsible mining in Dipoli, Espoo. The conference, organised by the University of Eastern Finland, the Academy of Finland and the Ministry of Employment and the Economy, focuses particularly on the prospects of the poor countries under the circumstances of the prevailing mining boom.

The Ministry for Foreign Affairs has appointed Pekka Isosomppi to the position of Press Counsellor at the Finnish Embassy in London as of 1 December. The term of appointment is for three years.

The conveners of the Conference on the establishment of a Middle East zone free of nuclear weapons and all other weapons of mass destruction, the United Nations Secretary-General, the Russian Federation, the United Kingdom and the United States, have issued statements regarding the convening of the conference, planned for 2012 in Helsinki.

World Bank Chief Economist Kaushik Basu will visit Helsinki from 26 to 27 November 2012. During his visit, he will meet Minister for International Development Heidi Hautala, Director General of the Financial Markets Department at the Ministry of Finance Pentti Pikkarainen, and various MPs, including the members of the Parliamentary Foreign Affairs Committee.

The new Prosecutor of the International Criminal Court (ICC) Fatou Bensouda will visit Helsinki on 27 and 28 November at the invitation of Foreign Minister Erkki Tuomioja.

Croatian Minister of Foreign and European Affairs Vesna Pusić will visit Finland on 28 November. Pusić will have official discussions with Erkki Tuomioja and in the Finnish Parliament she will meet Speaker of Parliament Eero Heinäluoma and representatives of the Grand Committee and the Foreign Affairs Committee.

Finland stresses the importance of high-quality education at the Global Education for All meeting held at the UNESCO headquarters in Paris from 21 to 23 November. The objective of the meeting is to accelerate the achievement of the UN Millennium Development Goals in the field of education.