Foreign Ministry's press releases

UN High Commissioner for Human Rights Michelle Bachelet will visit Finland on 5–6 February 2020.

Minister for Nordic Cooperation Thomas Blomqvist will attend a meeting of Ministers for Nordic Cooperation in Copenhagen on 4 February 2020.

Mirko Manzoni, Personal Envoy of the UN Secretary-General for Mozambique and Neha Sanghrajka, Senior Mediation Advisor, will visit Finland on 3–4 February. The Mozambican peace process is in a critical phase as the opposition troops are being demobilised. The aim is to return them to their communities and reintegrate them into a peaceful society.

The Ministry for Foreign Affairs has appointed Heli Suominen as Press Officer at the Finnish Embassy in London. The three-year term will start on 1 March 2020.

On 31 January, Finland’s Permanent Representative to the Council of Europe, Ambassador Nina Nordström, was elected as Chair of the Committee of the Parties to the Council of Europe Convention on Preventing and Combating Violence against Women and Domestic Violence (Istanbul Convention). The Permanent Representatives of Ireland and Albania were elected as Vice-Chairs.

Sweden’s Minister for Foreign Affairs Ann Linde and Norway’s Minister for Foreign Affairs Ine Eriksen Søreide will visit Finland on 5–6 February. The two ministers will attend the Hanalys seminar on foreign and security policy at Hanaholmen on 6 February.

By decision of Minister for Development Cooperation and Foreign Trade Ville Skinnari, the Ministry for Foreign Affairs has granted 22.5 million euros for Finnish civil society organisations’ (CSOs) development cooperation programmes in Africa for 2020–2021.

Executive Director of UN Women Phumzile Mlambo-Ngcuka will visit Finland on 4 February.

This is FINLAND Magazine 2020–2021 has been released. This year's issue highlights Finland's strengths particularly in promoting sustainable development and curbing climate change.

Dr Abdulkarim Omar, who represents the autonomous administration of northeast Syria, will visit Helsinki on 29–30 January 2020. Omar is Co-Chair of the Foreign Relations Commission in northeast Syria, which has declared itself as an autonomous region.