Free Republic

Visiting Sweden, NATO Secretary General Jaap de Hoop Scheffer said that Sweden is one of NATO’s most important partners and is welcome as a member in the rapid reaction force, should Sweden decide to join. On Friday Morning, NATO’s Secretary General met Sweden’s Defence Minister Sten Tolgfors to discuss the situation in Afghanistan, one of the two places where Swedish troops come under NATO command as part of the ISAF force. They also discussed possible participation in NATO’s rapid reaction force (NRF), with Sweden saying a decision may be reached by the spring. Jaap de Hoop Scheffer also promised to...

Less than fifteen years after the last Soviet troops pulled out of the Baltic States, a new survey has shown that young Swedes are still in the dark about the fate of its neighbours behind the Iron Curtain. A poll carried out by Demoskop on behalf of the Organization for Information on Communism (Föreningen för upplysning om kommunismen - UOK) found that 90 percent of Swedes between the ages of 15 and 20 had never heard of the Gulag. This can be contrasted with the 95 percent who knew of Auschwitz. "Unfortunately we were not at all surprised by the...

Between 100 and 200 Iranian dissidents protested in Stockholm on Monday against a visit to Sweden by Iranian Foreign Minister Manouchehr Mottaki. Protesters threw eggs at the door of the Swedish Institute of International Affairs where Mottaki was due to deliver a speech, and shouted slogans denouncing the Iranian regime. The group also called for the release of political prisoners. A large police force was on hand to prevent the demonstrators from entering the building. In his address, Mottaki stressed that Iran's nuclear programme was "peaceful" and posed "no threat to international peace and security." The UN Security Council imposed...

Bildt: North Korea nuclear test 'extremely serious' Swedish foreign minister Carl Bildt has described North Korean claims that it has carried out an underground nuclear weapons test as "an extremely serious development." The test would have consequences both for stability in East Asia and for international efforts to stem the proliferation of nuclear weapons, Bildt said in a statement on Monday morning. "While it has been assumed for a long time that North Korea has a few nuclear charges, a test of this kind is a conscious and serious provocation directed at the entire international community," he said, adding that...

Carl Bildt Sweden's new Foreign Minister Former prime minister Carl Bildt has been named as the Minister for Foreign Affairs in the new government presented by Fredrik Reinfeld on Friday. Ten of the 21 new ministers are women, and nine ministers are Moderates. 57 year old Carl Bildt was prime minister of Sweden from 1991 to 1994 and was the UN Secretary General's Special Envoy for the Balkans between 1999 and 2001. He has been on the board of Vostok Nafta since 2002 and is also on the board of Lundin Petroleum AB, a part of the Lundin Group of...

GEN-BALKAN-COMMISSIONER-BILDT UN Commissioner to Balkan calls for recognizing Islam as European culture By Yaseen Rawashdeh SARAJEVO, March 12 (KUNA) -- UN Commissioner to the Balkans Carl Bildt on Saturday called for recognizing Islam as part of the European culture, asserting that Muslims in Balkan formed a unique and positive factor in European affairs. In a statement on the Balkan Convention for Development and Cooperation, which took place in Macedonia, Bildt told KUNA that Muslims in the Balkans, especially in Bosnia and Kosovo, proved that they are characterized with tolerance and cooperation with other societies, noting that they were victims of...