Foreign Minister Maria Malmer Stenergard (M) is visiting Eritrea where she met her Eritrean counterpart Osman Saleh.
The Swedish citizen Dawit Isaak has been imprisoned in the country for over 24 years – without a trial.
Journalist Martin Schibbye writes that the regime’s release of hundreds of prisoners “opens up a new window” for the foreign minister during the visit.
“The two foreign ministers discussed the bilateral relations between Eritrea and Sweden, regional development as well as peace and security in Africa and the Red Sea region,” writes Eritrea’s Ministry of Information on its website, and publishes a picture of the visit.
Maria Malmer Stenergard arrived on Wednesday and is on a two-day visit to the capital Asmara, according to the ministry.
She also met, among others, Eritrea’s minister of labor and social affairs.
The visit is the first from a Swedish foreign minister since the country won its independence in 1993, reports Blankspot.
It is not clear whether during the visit Malmer Stenergard has raised the issue of the Swedish citizen and journalist Dawit Isaak, who has been imprisoned in the country without trial since September 2001.
During the week, hundreds of prisoners were released from Eritrean prisons after being held without trial for up to 18 years.
Schibbye: “Opens a new window”
“That very background, the releases in December, means that today’s visit to Stenergard opens a new window, new questions can be asked: who was released, who remains, why were they released in particular, and what happens to the other prisoners?”, writes journalist Martin Schibbye, with extensive experience in reporting on Eritrea, in an analytical text at Blankspot.
Schibbye writes that the visit can be seen as the result of ten years of diplomatic efforts aimed at improving relations between Sweden and the Eritrean regime.
“Instead of threats and sanctions, they should open contact points and focus on solving the border issue between Ethiopia and Eritrea, which was then the major contentious issue in the region. The strategy was that of the new social democratic government, but it was also rooted in the opposition. No one wanted to turn the issue of Dawit into a party political issue. Eritrea would be met by a united Swedish voice,” writes Schibbye.
Martin Schibbye was together with the journalist Johan Persson imprisoned in Ethiopia for 438 days after they were arrested during a reporting trip in the Ogaden province in 2011 – and he believes that a major war is now threatening between Ethiopia and Eritrea.
“The meeting between Sweden and Eritrea also takes place at an alarming time for Eritrea, when the country is threatened by war. In recent years, neighboring Ethiopia has sharpened its rhetoric about access to the Red Sea,” writes Schibbye.
TT has applied for Malmer Stenergard.
