Foreign Ministry's press releases

Foreign Minister Alexander Stubb will attend the Informal Meeting of EU Foreign Ministers, the so-called Gymnich meeting, to be held in Avignon, France on 5–6 September.

Enhancing national capacities to prosecute cases of human trafficking, taking into account the need for trafficking victims to be adequately protected and assisted will be the focus of an OSCE two-day conference that opens in Helsinki on Wednesday, 10 September.

Counsellor of Foreign Affairs Kari Kahiluoto has taken up the post of Ambassador for Human Rights and Democracy in the Ministry for Foreign Affairs as from 1 September.

Minister for Foreign Trade and Development Paavo Väyrynen will participate in High Level Forum on Aid Effectiveness in Accra, Ghana, on 2—4 September. The Forum is expected to bring together more than 800 participants, including more than 100 ministers from donor and recipient countries, international agencies and development banks, and civil society organisations.

At an event held today in Helsinki, Minister of the Environment Paula Lehtomäki signed the agreement on reciprocal promotion and protection of investments between Finland and Kenya. The agreement was signed for Kenya by Minister for Cooperative Development Joseph W. N. Nyagah.

Joseph W. N. Nyagah, Minister for Cooperative Development of Kenya, and a Kenyan delegation representing cooperative enterprise is visiting Finland from 30 August to 3 September. The purpose of the trip is to learn about Finnish cooperatives and to sign an investment protection agreement between Finland and Kenya.

On Friday 29 August, the joint meeting of the President of the Republic and the Cabinet Committee on Foreign and Security Policy, and the meeting of the Cabinet Committee on European Union Affairs discussed the crisis in Georgia. The issue will be addressed at the extraordinary European Council meeting scheduled for 1 September in Brussels.

Foreign Minister Alexander Stubb will travel to Israel and the Palestinian Territories on Tuesday, 2 September. During his trip, Stubb will meet in Israel with President Shimon Peres, Prime Minister Ehud Olmert, Foreign Minister Tzipi Livni and opposition leader Benjamin Netanyahu.

The OSCE Chairman-in-Office, Finnish Foreign Minister Alexander Stubb, today condemned the decision by Russia to recognize the independence of the breakaway Georgian regions of South Ossetia and Abkhazia.

The President of the Republic has decided today, 26 August, that Finland will participate in the military monitoring mission in Georgia undertaken by the Organization for Security and Cooperation in Europe. Finland will send at most ten military monitoring officers to Georgia. The matter was discussed today during the Government’s extraordinary Presidential session.