Donetsk, Jul 21 – DAN. Donetsk and Lugansk have invited the new OSCE Chairperson’s Special Representative in Ukraine Ambassador Mikko Kinnunen to visit the DPR and LPR, the DPR Foreign Ministry said.
"We have invited Kinnunen to visit the Republics so that he acquaints himself with the situation in person. We believe that this experience will help him to perform his duties in the Contact Group," the statement said citing Foreign Minister Natalia Nikonorova.
Ambassador Mikko Kinnunen from Finland is to replace Ambassador Heidi Grau as the OSCE Chairperson’s Special Representative in Ukraine and in the Trilateral Contact Group, the international organization said in a statement.
Kinnunen is to assume the position from August 1.
Mikko Kinnunen is currently Political Director (Director General for Political Affairs) in the Finnish Ministry for Foreign Affairs.
He joined the Foreign Ministry in 1996 and has worked, among other things, as Director of the Unit for Security Policy and as Finland’s first Ambassador for Countering Hybrid Threats.
In 2009–2013, Kinnunen served as Finland's Ambassador in Kazakhstan and Kyrgyzstan. He has also worked in the Embassies in Moscow and Washington DC and at the Permanent Mission of Finland to the United Nations in New York. *ot