It is time to celebrate today – although the festive will happen after the summer due the current challenges with corona virus spread in Finland and Pakistan.
The Exequatur of the first ever Honorary Consul of Pakistan in Finland was signed on May 5, 1950 and Mr. Karl Ragnar Öller started his ten years period representing a rather new country in the world map – a country which became independent just three years before. Karl Ragnar Öller, a Finnish Ph.D., writer and diplomat (1893-1960) who was the acting Honorary Consul for Lithuania for 25 years, up to 1940 when then Soviet-Union took over the country and Mr. Öller used his diplomatic skills and networks to represent Pakistan in 1950-1960, until his death.
Since Mr. Öller, the first Honorary Consul of Pakistan, there has been four other Honorary Consuls representing Pakistan in Finland and the status was upgraded to Honorary Consulate General in 1990. Mr. Cyril Henrik William Reincke (1962-1967), Mr. Aarne Roiha (1969-1979), Mr. Heikki Timonen (1982-2014) and Mr. Wille Eerola (2016- present), have all successfully kept running various activities supporting the image and recognition of Pakistan, as well as commerce, trade and diplomatic relations between Pakistan and Finland for 70 years and the work is continuing very strongly for another decades to come.
The official diplomatic relations between Finland and Pakistan were signed on January 15, 1951 so another important milestone of 70 years is reached next year.
“It is a great honor to be in this position with such long and lively history, continuing my predecessor’s work and legacy, and simultaneously fine-tuning the activities of Honorary Consulate General to match the modern requirements”, says Wille Eerola, Honorary Consulate General of Pakistan in Finland. “Despite all-over digitalization and global online access, there are still huge amount of actions and work needed to create new networks, build new relations, support new trade, build new cooperation on education and research and so much more where people do matter and personal face-to-face meetings are a must and that is exactly what we do at the Honorary Consulate General. We build bridges to connect people, universities, companies in both countries for a prosperous future. And even we can’t celebrate today in a way we planned due COVID-19, there are plenty of things to come – both in more modern and very new and modern platforms. And we have been very active this year with various projects in education and energy and there are plenty of news coming from both sectors soon!”
We also want to thank both Governments, Prime Minister’s Office in Pakistan, Ministry of Foreign Affairs of Pakistan, Ministry of Foreign Affairs of Finland, Embassy of Pakistan to Sweden and Finland and all other supporters for your help and support over these decades and beyond.
