Yle.fi
Saturday April 8, 2023
Finnish Foreign Affairs Minister Pekka Haavisto was in Mogadishu on Friday to discuss Somalia's support of the international community in light of Russia's war in Ukraine.
Earlier this week, Finnish Minister for Foreign Affairs Pekka Haavisto signed Nato's instrument of accession in Brussels with the government of the United States and Finland at the alliance's headquarters in Brussels, Belgium. Image: Emmi Korhonen / Lehtikuva
Minister for Foreign Affairs Pekka Haavisto (Green) on Friday visited Somalia's capital, Mogadishu, where he met with President of Somalia Hassan Sheikh Mohamud, as well as other key ministers.
"I communicated to the Somalian state leaders the importance of Somalia supporting the international community in its efforts to end Russia's invasion of Ukraine," Haavisto said in a foreign ministry statement.
In addition to Russia's invasion of Ukraine, bilateral relations between Finland and Somalia were also on the agenda, as well as the political and peace processes in Somalia and the Horn of Africa, according to the foreign ministry.
"The Somali diaspora in Finland is doing extremely valuable work in reconstructing Somalia and promoting relations between our countries," Haavisto added.
Somali is Finland's fifth biggest language group. Somalis initially arrived as civil war refugees in the early 1990s. Today Finland is home to some 20,000 Somali speakers, while around 18 percent of the community is born in Finland.