Sweden's defense minister
on Monday called Saudi Arabia a dictatorship, five months after her predecessor
resigned amid controversy over Swedish plans to help the country build an arms
factory.
"Saudi Arabia is an
authoritarian regime and an absolute monarchy, where serious human rights
crimes are committed," Defense Minister Karin Enstroem wrote in an email
to Swedish news agency TT, a copy of which was given to AFP.
"The [Swedish]
government does not qualify countries as democracies or dictatorships, but if
the only choices to describe Saudi Arabia are as a democracy or dictatorship,
then Saudi Arabia has to be described as a dictatorship," she wrote.
The minister, a member of
Prime Minister Fredrik Reinfeldt's conservative Moderate Party, had been widely
criticized for refusing to describe Riyadh as a dictatorship, limiting herself,
as she did on Swedish Radio earlier Monday, to calling it "a very
authoritarian regime.”
Foreign Minister Carl Bildt
meanwhile wrote on Twitter on Monday that "I usually describe Saudi Arabia
as an absolute monarchy."
Enstroem's predecessor
resigned in late March after weeks of controversy over revelations that Sweden
planned to help Saudi Arabia build an arms factory.
The project involved
creating a shell company to handle dealings with Saudi Arabia, in order to
avoid any direct links to the Swedish Defense Research Agency (FOI) and the
government.
Sweden has in the past sold
weapons to Riyadh, but classified government documents stated that the project
"pushes the boundaries of what is possible for a Swedish authority... in a
dictatorship such as Saudi Arabia," Swedish Radio said when it broke the
story on March 6.
Swedish prosecutors have
opened a preliminary investigation into the affair.
Saudi Arabia has long been Sweden's most important trade partner in the
Middle East. Swedish exports to the country totaled 12 billion kronor (1.48
billion euros, $1.8 billion) in 2011, according to the Foreign Ministry.http://www.nowlebanon.com/NewsArticleDetails.aspx?ID=427465#
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