Swedish FM denied Colombo Visa, Envoy recalled
Bildt was due to take part in a European diplomatic mission to Sri Lanka with his British and French counterparts on Wednesday (April 29). The visit was to persuade the Sri Lankan authorities to declare a ceasefire in the northeastern region where troops are battling Tamil Tiger militants and tens of thousands of civilians are trapped in the no fire zone.
Sweden takes over the rotating EU presidency in July.
British Foreign Secretary David Miliband and French Foreign Minister Bernard Kouchner would go ahead with the trip. ‘It’s all going ahead and there’s no change in our plans,’ a spokesperson of the British foreign office said in London
In Colombo, a senior Sri Lankan foreign ministry official confirmed that the Miliband-Kouchner visit would go ahead as planned on Wednesday. The official said Bildt had been denied a visa.
‘We invited the French foreign minister and then the British Foreign minister wanted to join him. We said OK. Then the Swedish minister also wanted to jump in on that bandwagon and we said no,’ the official said.
Amidst reports that government forces are still pounding rebel-held territory despite a pledge to stop using heavy weapons, Bildt said in Luxembourg, ‘’They want to completely crush the LTTE movement, one can understand that, that’s a terrorist organisation, but there are tens and tens of thousands of people who are trapped there and they have to look at their lives, the humanitarian considerations’.
He added, ‘What is needed is a political process so that all sectors of society feel that they are part of society and until that is resolved we won’t get stability in Sri Lanka’
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