Former Prime Minister Carl Bildt is back in Sweden after attending the installation of Turkish President Recep Tayyip Erdogan. There, Bildt spoke with the new foreign minister, Hakan Fidan.
– The new foreign minister is undoubtedly competent and respected, says Bildt to Sweden’s Radio Ekot.
Bildt was Sweden’s official representative at the ceremony last Saturday. In the evening, Erdogan presented his new government, where only two ministers remain in their previous positions.
Many are now wondering what the rearrangement might mean for Sweden and the Swedish NATO application. Not least with the former intelligence chief Fidan in the position of foreign minister.
Carl Bildt tells Ekot that he and Fidan did not talk so “in detail” and not directly about the “current issues”.
– Maybe a little with the foreign minister, about the interest we have in crime prevention cooperation between Sweden and Turkey. It can be about terrorism and the PKK, but also about other things.
But they didn’t talk about NATO, according to Bildt.
– No, not really, for the simple reason that the substantive talks on that issue were conducted during the day by NATO Secretary General Jens Stoltenberg, who was there.