Foreign Minister Yair Lapid announced Monday he spoke with his Swedish counterpart Ann Linde on Monday, ending a seven-year diplomatic rift between the two countries and thawing ties with the Scandinavian nation.
"I spoke with @AnnLinde , the Minister of Foreign Affairs of Sweden. This phone conversation, the first in 7 years between the Foreign Ministers of our countries, symbolizes the relaunching of relations at this level," Lapid wrote on Twitter.
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Foreign Minister Yair Lapid spoke to his Swedish counterpart Ann Linde
(Photo: Yuval Hen, Swedish Ministry of Foreign Affairs)
This is the first contact between the nations on the foreign minister level since Sweden became the first major European country to officially recognized a Palestinian state in 2014, a move that prompted Israel to recall its envoy from Stockholm.
Israel has refused to allow Linde and her predecessor Margot Wallstrom to visit the country ever since, despite repeated requests from the two.
Lapid further noted he appreciated Linde's statement regarding "Sweden’s strong and solid commitment to the security of Israel and her recognition in the course of our conversation of Israel as the homeland of the Jewish people."
The two also discussed Israel participating at the Malmö International Forum on Holocaust Remembrance and Combating Antisemitism which is scheduled to take place on October 13.
Linde came into office in September 2019 and soon after managed to enrage Israel when she said she did not view the Boycott, Divestment and Sanctions (BDS) movement — which promotes boycotts and economic sanctions against Israel — as illegitimate and non-violent.
Linda qualified her statement, saying she did not support boycotts against Israel and even supports expanding trade and cooperation with Jerusalem, but also stated, on the other hand, that she viewed boycotts as a legitimate political means to a non-violent political struggle for human rights, democracy, freedom of expression and ending the so-called Israeli occupation on Palestinian territories.