Carl Bildt Persona Non Grata In Russia?
October 03, 2008
The Caucasus Press reports that the Russian Foreign Ministry intends to make Swedish Foreign Minister Carl Bildt, the current chairman of the Council of Europe, persona non grata.
The unconfirmed reports say that Moscow will send an official notification to Stockholm in the next few days.
Apparently, the Kremlin was outraged by Bildt's recent statement, where the Swedish foreign minister drew a
parallel between Putin's justification for dismembering Georgia -- because of the Russians in South Ossetia -- to Hitler's tactics vis a vis Czechoslovakia to "free" the Sudeten Germans.
Bildt has been
increasingly outspoken about Russia of late, saying the country is pursuing the geopolitics of the 19th century and that there are currently no common values between the EU and Russia.
In the past, Moscow hasn't exactly given Bildt the bread-and-salt welcome. Throughout the Georgia conflict, the Russian authorities refused to receive him.
-- David Kakabadze/Luke Allnutt