Stockholm: Swedish Foreign Minister Margot Wallstroem has indefinitely postponed a planned trip to Israel, a spokesman said Wednesday, in an apparent cooling of relations between the two countries since Sweden recognised Palestine.
“The foreign minister has decided to postpone her visit to Israel and Palestine. Instead of next week it will take place later. No date is yet decided,” Margot Wallstroem’s spokesman Erik Boman said.
Sweden’s decision to recognise the state of Palestine in late October caused Israel to recall its ambassador to Stockholm, who returned a month later.
Israeli media reported in mid-December that Wallstroem’s Israeli counterpart Avigdor Lieberman did not want to meet the Swedish foreign minister.
Wallstroem’s scheduled visit had not been officially announced.
According to Swedish media, the main purpose of the trip had been to honour the memory of Raoul Wallenberg, the Swedish diplomat who saved tens of thousands of Budapest Jews from being sent to concentration camps by issuing them Swedish papers in 1944-1945.
