Iran FM due in Finland next week

Zarif is scheduled to hold talks with Finland’s Minister of Foreign Affairs Timo Soini on 31 May, the Finnish government announced on its website on Tuesday.

It added that the two ministers’ discussions will focus on Tehran-Helsinki relations, regional developments in the Middle East and the Persian Gulf, ties between the European Union and Iran, and other topical international issues.

The Iranian foreign minister will also sit down with Finnish President Sauli Niinisto and Speaker of Parliament Maria Lohela.

A large business delegation will accompany Zarif in his trip to Finland.

In January, on the sidelines of the 46th annual meeting of the World Economic Forum (WEF) in Davos, Switzerland, the Iranian foreign minister and Finland’s president held a meeting.

Both Niinisto and Zarif commended last July’s nuclear agreement reached between Iran and the P5+1 group of countries, dubbed the Joint Comprehensive Plan of Action (JCPOA).

Iran and the five permanent members of the UN Security Council – the United States, France, Britain, China and Russia – plus Germany started implementing the JCPOA on January 16 after they signed the agreement on July 14, 2015 following two and a half years of intensive talks.

Under the deal, all nuclear-related sanctions imposed on Iran by the European Union, the Security Council and the US would be lifted. Iran has, in return, put some limitations on its nuclear activities.
Zarif and Niinisto also exchanged views about possible ways to solve the five-year-old conflict in Syria.

According to UN Special Envoy for Syria Staffan de Mistura, over 400,000 people have been killed in the Syrian conflict since March 2011.

/SR