ANKARA
By Betül Yürük
Regional cooperation is getting stronger and Turkey's being a part of the EU will contribute to regional integration, Miapetra Kumpulu-Natri, head of the Grand Committee of the Finnish parliament, told Anadolu Agency.
Natri said Turkey is doing better economically than the EU when looked at the growing figures.
Expressing support for Turkey's EU membership process, Natri said signing a readmission agreement between Turkey and the EU will be a road map for visa dialogue, which is widely expected to allow Turkish citizens to travel to Europe without holding a visa.
"Finland welcomes new countries to the EU once the criteria are fulfilled," Natri said.
Natri also said Finland was thankful to Turkey for the responsibility it has taken in Syria crisis, which she said was affecting the global balances, by hosting more than 600 thousand refugees.
"Finland is willing to share the burden with the countries hosting Syrian refugees. Finland has said that it will take 500 refugees in 2014,"she said.
"When you compare the size of Finland which has a population of 5.5 million, this figure is not as little as it sounds".
Noting that Finland wants to provide the refugees with the best possible opportunities, Natri said we also want to integrate them into the community.
Meanwhile Chairman of the Foreign Affairs of the Finnish Parliament Timo Soini said they were committed to the decisions made by the UN Security Council to end the more than two-year-old conflict in Syria.
There must be a political solution to Syria crisis, Soini said.
Finland supports the Geneva 2 Conference, he said adding "the situation in Syria is very bad and tense and parties must sit around the same table to start negotiations.
The planned international peace conference in Geneva seeking a negotiated solution to the Syrian conflict has been delayed for months due to disagreements on whether Syrian President Bashar al-Assad should play any future role in Syria.
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