Swedish foreign minister urges Russia to end "authoritarian" trend

Stockholm - Russia cannot continue its recent 'authoritarian' trend if it is to develop a modern society and economy, Swedish Foreign Minister Carl Bildt said Wednesday. 'In the long-term, a growing middle class will also demand rule of law in Russia, and the Kremlin will sooner or later realize that the kind of policies we have seen used against Georgia and Estonia are counterproductive,' Bildt said in an op-ed article in Stockholm daily Dagens Nyheter. The Swedish foreign minister said that with Russian presidential elections due in March a 'new leadership may perhaps offer possibilities of new cooperation,' noting disarmament as one area. Concerning the European Union, Bildt reiterated that Sweden favoured a future enlargement of the bloc and that the member states needed to ratify the recent Lisbon Treaty on reforming the EU's internal rules. The EU also needed to review its 'diplomatic, economic and military' capacities if it is to serve as a 'real peace power,' Bildt said. Looking ahead at 2008, Bildt said challenges included seeking a viable solution to the status of Kosovo, the Middle East peace process as well as the need to secure peace in the troubled Sudanese region Darfur and neighbouring Chad as well as Somalia. © 2008 dpa - Deutsche Presse-Agentur

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lolJan 4th, 2008 - 20:56:33

Russians are too stupid, no wonder that nation was the 'soul' behind the USSR, a state that is one of the highest mass murderers of its own citizens (not forgetting how they started WW2 in concert with the NAZIs, with the joint invasion of Poland) - it's good that it is going back in that direction, they get what they deserve, what's more they are dying out. Pathetic country an even more pathetic people

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