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Sweden's foreign minister to visit Sri Lanka

Xinhua, April 23, 2016 Adjust font size:

Sweden's Foreign Minister, Margot Wallstrom, is expected to arrive in Sri Lanka on Sunday, to renew bilateral relations and strengthen trade cooperation, the Foreign Ministry said in a statement here on Saturday.

Wallstrom who will be arriving in the country at the invitation of Sri Lanka's Minister of Foreign Affairs, Mangala Samaraweera, will be accompanied by a seven-member trade delegation comprising of leading Swedish companies.

She will hold bilateral discussions with Minister Samaraweera and call on President Maithripala Sirisena, Prime Minister Ranil Wickremesinghe and also meet with Speaker of Parliament Karu Jayasuriya.

During her visit, Wallstrom will also visit the former war torn northern city of Jaffna where she will meet with government officials and civil society and visit an IDP Welfare Camp and a Housing Project.

Wallstrom had served in Sri Lanka from 1998 to 1999 as the Executive Vice President of the World View Global Media.

Ties between Sri Lanka and Sweden were strained when the former government in 2009 refused a visa to then Swedish Foreign Minister Carl Bildt, who was to join a European diplomatic mission to visit Sri Lanka.

Bildt had termed the Sri Lankan action an "exceedingly strange behaviour" and the top Swedish diplomat in Sri Lanka had been recalled for consultation. Enditem