SWEDEN - The Woes of Foreign Minister Margot Wallström

Margot Wallström Riyadh blocks Sweden FM address at Arab League meeting The Swedish foreign minister says Saudi Arabia has blocked her scheduled speech at an Arab League meeting in the Egyptian capital city of Cairo. “The explanation we have been given is that Sweden has highlighted the situation for democracy and human rights [in Saudi Arabia] and that is why they do not want me to speak,” said Margot Wallström in Cairo on Monday, adding, “It’s a shame that a country has blocked my participation.” Wallström implicitly criticized the Arab League for allowing Saudi Arabia to exert such a considerable influence on other member states. The Arab League had invited the Swedish official to give an address to the ministerial meeting of the organization in praise of Stockholm’s official decision to recognize Palestine as an independent state in October 2014. The decision to cancel the speech “has also put the Arab League in a difficult situation since it means that a country can block an event of this kind," Wallström added. An Arab diplomat has confirmed the news about canceling Wallström’s scheduled address in Cairo, AFP reported. EXTRACT - FULL AT SOURCE http://www.presstv.ir/Detail/2015/03/09/401035/KSA-bans-Sweden-FM-speech-at-AL  Russia blames Sweden for Ukraine crisis Russia’s embassy in Sweden has pointed the finger of blame at its host country for causing Ukraine's woes, in a furious response to comments made about the crisis by Foreign Minister Margot Wallström.  Writing on Facebook, the embassy lambasted the “honoured minister” for the “one-sided” view of the Ukraine conflict she put forward in an opinion piece published on Friday in the Svenska Dagbladet newspaper. In the article, Wallström said Russia’s annexation of Crimea and its military support for separatists in eastern Ukraine posed the greatest threat to peace in Europe since the end of the Cold War. In its response, the Russian embassy suggested Sweden and others had provoked Russia into seizing part of its neighbour’s territory by offering Ukraine a pathway to membership of the European Union. “The main tool turned out to be a state coup, a violent power takeover, which pushed Ukraine into the abyss of civil war,” the embassy wrote. EXTRACT - FULL AT SOURCE http://www.thelocal.se/20150309/russia-blames-sweden-for-ukraine-crisis Wallström not welcome in Israel Sweden's Foreign Minister Margot Wallström had planned to visit Israel this Thursday, to take part in a seminar in memory of the Swede Raoul Wallenberg in Tel Aviv. The Swedish Foreign Office says the trip was cancelled for scheduling reasons. But according to Swedish Radio News, the real reason is that Wallström was not welcome in Israel. Israeli officials have refused to meet with her, and it would have been embarrassing for the Foreign minister to visit the country unofficially. EXTRACT - FULL AT SOURCE http://sverigesradio.se/sida/artikel.aspx?programid=2054&artikel=6067802