Foreign Ministry's press releases

Minister for Foreign Trade and Development Paavo Väyrynen will visit Azerbaijan on 7-9 October in order to promote exports and internationalisation.

Secretary General of the Organisation of the Islamic Conference Ekmeleddin Ihsanoglu will visit Finland on 6-9 October. The organisation has 57 member states.

What are the working conditions of journalists in Central Asian countries like, what about their freedom of speech and expression, or opportunities for unionisation? These are some of the questions to be discussed at the seminar organised in Helsinki next week by the Finnish Foundation for Media, Communication and Development (VIKES) and the Finnish Ministry for Foreign Affairs, and financed by the ministry.

The OSCE Chairman-in-Office, Finnish Foreign Minister Alexander Stubb, condemned today recent violent incidents in Georgia and called for calm.

The OSCE Chairman-in-Office, Finnish Foreign Minister Alexander Stubb, condemned today an attack in which 15 Turkish soldiers were killed in southeastern Turkey on Friday.

The OSCE Chairman-in-Office, Finnish Foreign Minister Alexander Stubb will visit Minsk, Belarus, on Tuesday, 7 October.

Minister for Foreign Affairs of Hungary, Kinga Göncz will visit Helsinki on Tuesday, 7 October and meet with Foreign Minister Alexander Stubb.

President Martti Ahtisaari accepted the Félix Houphouët-Boigny Peace Prize established at the initiative of UNESCO, the United Nations Educational, Scientific and Cultural Organization, on Thursday, 2 October. The award ceremony took place at UNESCO headquarters in Paris.

Minister for Foreign Trade and Development Paavo Väyrynen underscored the importance of the private sector and the principles of holistically sustainable development in eliminating poverty in developing countries when he delivered his address at the Informal Meeting of Development Ministers in Bordeaux, France on 29–30 September. This thinking is also receiving ever wider support among Ministers from other Member States.

Government representatives, experts and human rights defenders from the OSCE’s 56 participating States gathered in Warsaw today for the opening of Europe’s largest human rights and democracy conference.