Kuopio was where Ahtisaari spent most of his childhood, eventually attending the Kuopion Lyseo high school.

Ahtisaari conducted several weeks of consultations with the parties in Vienna to finalize the Settlement, including a high-level meeting on 10 March 2007 that brought together the Presidents and Prime Ministers of both sides.

When Ahtisaari revealed in 1990 that he had secretly lengthened the grace period allowing UN officials to return misappropriated taxpayer money from the original three months to three years, the investigators were furious.

In later years of his career, Sorsa went into his Social Democratic Party's primary elections as candidate for president in 1993, but was defeated in a humiliating way by the relatively unknown international civil servant Martti Ahtisaari.

* Other Club de Madrid members involved in the diplomatic process include Helmut Kohl, the former Chancellor of Germany who oversaw the reunification of East and West Germany, who was a signee to the Dayton Accords, Canadian Prime Minister Jean Chrétien, who urged support for Canada's participation in Operation Allied Force, and Finnish President Martti Ahtisaari who, along with Russian Prime Minister Viktor Chernomyrdin, convinced Serbian President Slobodan Milošević to retreat from Kosovo in accordance with NATO's demands.

PON has recognized a diverse cast of distinguished negotiators from their respective fields: Martti Ahtisaari, Nobel Peace Prize recipient and former President of Finland ( 2010 ); Christo and Jeanne-Claude, the artists who created “ The Gates ” in Central Park ( 2008 ); Bruce Wasserstein, Chairman and CEO of Lazard, an international financial advisory and asset management firm ( 2007 ); Sadako Ogata, former United Nations high commissioner for refugees ( 2005 ); Richard Holbrooke, former United States ambassador to the United Nations ( 2004 ); Stuart Eizenstat, former U. S. ambassador to the European Union ( 2003 ); Ambassador Lakhdar Brahimi, the United Nations ’ special envoy for Afghanistan ( 2002 ); Charlene Barshefsky, U. S. trade representative in the second Clinton administration ( 2001 ); and former U. S. Senator George Mitchell for his work in Northern Ireland ( 2000 ).

UNTAG's Martti Ahtisaari took advice from British Prime Minister, Margaret Thatcher, who was visiting Southern Africa at the time, and authorized a limited contingent of South African troops to assist the South West African Police in restoring order.

Ahtisaari was a UN Special Envoy at the Kosovo status process negotiations, aimed at resolving a long-running dispute in Kosovo, which declared its independence from Serbia in 2008.

His father, Oiva Ahtisaari ( whose grandfather Julius Marenius Adolfsen had emigrated with his parents to Finland in 1872 from Tistedalen in Southern Norway ) took Finnish citizenship in 1929 and changed his surname from Adolfsen in 1937.

Ahtisaari took advice from British prime minister Margaret Thatcher, who was visiting the region at the time, and approved the SADF deployment.

Ahtisaari served as UN undersecretary general for administration and management from 1987 to 1991 causing mixed feelings inside the organization during an internal investigation of massive fraud.

During the campaign, there were rumours spread by some political opponents of Ahtisaari that he had a drinking problem or that he had knowingly accepted a double salary from the Finnish Foreign Ministry and from the United Nations while trying to negotiate an end to the Bosnian War.

Often encountering resistance from the Finnish parliament, which preferred a more cautious foreign policy, as well as from within his own party, Ahtisaari did not seek re-election in 2000.

In early 2006, Ahtisaari opened the UN Office of the Special Envoy for Kosovo ( UNOSEK ) in Vienna, Austria, from where he conducted the Kosovo status negotiations.

Ahtisaari was chairman of the Interpeace Governing Council from 2000-2009.

The UN Secretary-General pressed for the removal of all ex-Koevoet elements from SWAPOL, with Ahtisaari bringing to Pienaar's attention many allegations of misconduct by them.

President Martti Ahtisaari and the coalition governments led Finland closer to the core EU in the late 1990s.

* June 23 – Martti Ahtisaari, President of Finland

UN Special Envoy Martti Ahtisaari, a former president of Finland, leads the status process with Austrian diplomat Albert Rohan, his deputy.

Martti Oiva Kalevi Ahtisaari (; born 23 June 1937 ) is a Finnish politician, the tenth President of Finland ( 1994 – 2000 ), Nobel Peace Prize laureate and United Nations diplomat and mediator, noted for his international peace work.

Martti Ahtisaari was born in Viipuri, Finland ( now Vyborg, Russia ).

In Finnish politics, Ahtisaari has stressed how important it is for Finland to join NATO.

Ahtisaari has argued that Finland should be a full member of NATO and the EU in order " to shrug off once and for all the burden of Finlandization ".

Holkeri was awarded the highest Finnish honorary title of Valtioneuvos ( Counselor of State ) in 1998 by the President of Finland Martti Ahtisaari.

* Martti Ahtisaari, M. Sc., former President of Finland, Nobel Peace Prize laureate ( 2008 )

* Martti Ahtisaari, President of Finland ( 1994 – 2000 ), 2008 Nobel Peace Prize winner, AUBG Doctor of Humane Letters ( 2005 )

In 2000, Martti Ahtisaari, former President of Finland, and Cyril Ramaphosa, South African political and business leader, were appointed to inspect IRA weapons dumps.

She is former President of Service Centre for Development Cooperation and current Member of the executive bureau of Crisis Management Initiative which President is Martti Ahtisaari former President of Finland ( 1994 – 2000 ) and a United Nations diplomat and mediator, noted for his international peace work.

The person most conspicuously not appearing on the list is the international diplomat and former President of Finland Martti Ahtisaari, who has been a perennial favourite in Finland for the Nobel Peace Prize, and was finally awarded it in 2008.

Along with the ex-president of Finland, Martti Ahtisaari, he was appointed an inspector of the Irish Republican Army weapons dumps in Northern Ireland.

* Former President of Finland, Martti Ahtisaari.

* HE Martti Ahtisaari, former President of the Republic of Finland

* 7 September 1994: HE Martti Ahtisaari, former President of the Republic of Finland

She started her campaign for the presidency at the beginning of 1999 after President Martti Ahtisaari announced that he would not stand for a second term in the office.

The incumbent, Martti Ahtisaari, refused to run in party preliminaries and thus announced that he would not run for a second term.

Ahtisaari brought the parties together for the first direct dialogue in February 2006 to discuss decentralization of local government, an important measure in the protection of Kosovo Serb communities.

On 24 July 2006, Ahtisaari brought the parties together in Vienna for the first high-level talks on the status outcome itself.

Ahtisaari later told the press that the meeting resulted in no breakthroughs, but added that the discussion was " frank and candid " and the atmosphere was better than he could have expected.

Ahtisaari briefed Contact Group foreign ministers on 20 September 2006, in New York City at a meeting chaired by U. S. Secretary of state Condoleezza Rice.

On 2 February 2007, Ahtisaari delivered to representatives in Belgrade and Pristina a draft status settlement proposal.

Concluding that there was little hope of the two sides reconciling their positions independently, Ahtisaari said he would submit to the UN Security Council his own proposed status arrangements, including an explicit recommendation for the status outcome itself, by the end of March.

On Monday, 16 July 2007, after many weeks of discussions at the Security Council, Russia rejected a fifth draft of a Security Council resolution based on the Ahtisaari proposals.

Nevertheless discussions proceeded with UN Commissioner for Namibia N ° 2 Martti Ahtisaari who played a key role in getting the Constitutional Principles agreed in 1982 by the front-line states, SWAPO, and the Western Contact Group.

Former UN Commissioner N ° 2 and now UN Special Representative Martti Ahtisaari arrived in Windhoek in April 1989 to head the UN Transition Assistance Group's ( UNTAG ) mission.

The Nobel statement said that Ahtisaari has played a prominent role in resolving many conflicts in Namibia ; Aceh, Indonesia ; Kosovo and Iraq, among other areas.

In 1952, Martti Ahtisaari moved to Oulu with his family to seek employment.

After completing his military service ( Ahtisaari holds the rank of captain in the Finnish Army Reserve ), he began to study through a distance-learning course at Oulu teachers ' college.

Besides his native language, Finnish, Ahtisaari speaks Swedish, French, English, and German.