Sri lanka Refuses Visa for Swedish Foreign Minister

Swedish Foreign Minister, Car Bildt, has been refused entry to Sri Lanka. Photo by digitaltskapande.se

Sri Lanka has refused entry to Sweden's Foreign Minister Carl Bildt, who was to have joined a European diplomatic mission.

Bildt was to have arrived on Wednesday with David Miliband from the UK and France's Bernard Kouchner.

Sweden is to recall its top diplomat for consultation, Bildt said.

A Sri Lankan foreign ministry official said that this was not a snub but it could not cope with so many high-level delegations at one time.

Sri Lanka has had tense relations with the Scandinavian former monitors of its peace process but its main problems have been with the major ex-mediator, Norway.

Miliband and Kouchner have not been excluded from the visit. Bildt said they would continue as planned.

Bildt said the Sri Lankan action was "exceedingly strange behaviour" and that he was recalling the top Swedish diplomat in Sri Lanka, charge d'affaires Borje Mattsson, for consultation.

The senior Sri Lankan foreign ministry official told the BBC the country could not cope with all the delegations when facing the challenge of taking care of tens of thousands of civilians displaced by the war with the Tamil Tiger rebels.

The official said there had been an invitation to Bildt for next month.

Wednesday's diplomatic mission is part of international efforts to put pressure on Sri Lanka to call a ceasefire in the north-east, where the army is battling the rebels.
European Union foreign ministers on Monday joined the UN in the call for the truce.

The Sri Lankan military has restricted the rebels to a small stretch of land and believes final victory is near.

 

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