Carl Bildt in the FT

The Financial Times has published an interview with Sweden's foreign minister, Carl Bildt. As the foreign minister notes in his blog, "interest in what Sweden has to say about the European situation just now seems to be relatively strong." Excerpt:

Carl Bildt told the FT: “They are opening up a Pandora’s box of questions that will be extremely difficult to answer. If you are interested in the stability of the Caucasus – and Russia is more interested in that than anyone else – you should be very careful with borders. . . They have fought two wars in Chechnya.” Mr Bildt said Russia had sent “shockwaves of fear” throughout the region, but he argued it was likely to be the biggest long-term loser by choosing international confrontation over economic “modernisation”.

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“South Ossetian independence is a joke. We are talking about a smugglers’ paradise of 60,000 people financed by the Russian security services. No one can seriously consider that as an independent state,” he said. 

See also: Bildt: Russia has chosen confrontation