On 8 December the director of the Åland Islands Peace Institute, Associate Professor Kjell-Åke Nordquist held a presentation for the Turku Kupittaan Rotary Club in Turku, Finland. Nordquist gave a talk where he introduced the work of the Institute and then explained how the particular features of Åland’s status – in international agreements as well as in Finland’s constitution – consist of parts that interact in a way that promotes peaceful conflict resolution. While this structure helps building stability and conditions for social and economic development in the Baltic Sea region it is also from an international point of view a very rare, not to say unique, combination of instruments for peace and respect for minorities. Many international visitors, in particular from countries with internal armed conflicts, testify to this. For Rotary, international work, including scholarships and exchange visits, is an important part of its work, and therefore, many reflections on how cooperation and international understanding can be promoted were shared during the discussion, after the talk.
