Foreign Minister Kanerva invited to Washington

Finland's Minister for Foreign Affairs Ilkka Kanerva (Nat. Coalition Party) briefly met with United States Secretary of State Condoleezza Rice on Thursday at a dinner in the Norwegian capital Oslo during a informal meeting of European Union and NATO foreign ministers. After a discussion that reportedly lasted "a few minutes", he was invited to Washington. Kanerva believes that Rice became interested in the foreign policy ideas of the new Finnish government.
      "I told her that Finland has a new government, and mentioned the government's course on foreign policy. I also noted that the programme includes a transatlantic aspect", said Kanerva at a press conference in Helsinki in Friday.
      Rice felt that Kanerva's comments were so interesting that she felt that they should "discuss them a bit more thoroughly".
     
The invitation, which came when the new Foreign Minister had been in office for just two weeks, was seen by some as a rebuff against Kanerva's predecessor, Erkki Tuomioja (SDP).
      "I would not draw the conclusion that the change in government alone would have caused this", Kanerva said, adding that a more likely reason was that there have not been very close contacts in recent times at the foreign minister level, and that it is time to examine issues from both sides.
      Kanerva emphasised that Tuomioja had held discussions during Finland's turn at the EU Presidency. "These relations weren't frozen then", he said.
      Kanerva felt that it is significant that relations between Finnish players and the United States are in "excellent condition", and that both he and President Tarja Halonen noted this during a meeting that the two had on Friday.
      Kanerva did not have any information on the possible timing of his upcoming visit to Washington.
      Kanerva's next scheduled foreign visit is to Estonia on May 2nd.
     
Finland can also expect visitors. "There was talk with Russian Foreign Minister Sergei Lavrov that he should visit Finland", Kanerva said.


Previously in HS International Edition:
  President Halonen in TV interview: No problem in ties with USA (11.9.2006)
  Finland - important to Russia, not to USA (26.11.2006)
  On keeping up good relations with the U.S. (14.5.2006)
  Prime Minister admits to "moderately long" gap in high level USA visits (15.5.2006)