Foreign Minister of Finland, Alexander Stub pays official visit to Georgia. The diplomat held its first meeting with the Minister of Foreign Affairs of Georgia Grigol Vashadze. The sides discussed bilateral cooperation and emphasized the necessity to reinforce the friendly-political relations by intensifying economic cooperation in the future.
The ministers held a briefing for media after the meeting.
`In August 2008, Finland was the OSCE president country, which contributed much to cease war in Georgia. We believe that the political friendship between Georgia and Finland should be reinforced by economic cooperation,` Foreign Minister Vashadze announced and added they discussed Georgia`s integration into European structures and the support of international community to this process.
Finnish diplomat recollected the days of war in Georgia and his frequent visits to the conflict region together with Bernad Kouchner in August 2008; Alexander Stub said negotiations between Georgia and Russia were inevitable.
`Conflicts have a tendence to move through three stages, first there is tension, second there is conflict itself, in which I was personally involved as chairman of the OSCE and finally, there is conflict resolution and negotiation. It`s impossible to say at this stage how long it will take. You have seen all of our joint positions from the European Union`s side calling for the respect of territorial integrity and sovereignty of Georgia. I am pleased that negotiations are going on in Geneva and the Finish input in that is quite strong in this sense. We have Anti Turrunen on the side of the UN there and we are trying to push the process forward,` Alexander Stub said.
