Sri Lanka has refused an entry visa for Sweden’s Foreign Minister Carl Bildt, writes BBC online.
Mr Bildt was to have taken part in a European diplomatic mission including the UK’s David Miliband and France’s Bernard Kouchner and is expected to push for a truce between the army and rebels.
Sweden’s top diplomat in Sri Lanka has been recalled for consultation.
Sri Lanka has had tense relations with the Scandinavian former monitors of its peace process but its main problems have been with the major ex-mediator, Norway.
Mr Bildt told media that he is not persona non grata because they say he is welcome at another time.
– I am not intending to take up that invitation, he said.
A senior Sri Lankan foreign ministry official told the BBC the country could not cope with all the delegations when facing the challenge of taking care of tens of thousands of civilians displaced by the war with the Tamil Tiger rebels.
