STOCKHOLM (Reuters) -Sweden would consider contributing to post-war peacekeeping forces in Ukraine, Prime Minister Ulf Kristersson said on Monday, adding that negotiations would need to progress before any such decision was taken.
The minister’s comments came after British Prime Minister Keir Starmer said he was ready to send British troops to Ukraine for peacekeeping duties as he tried to show the U.S. that European nations should have a role in talks on ending the war.
Asked by Reuters whether Sweden would be willing to contribute to these forces, Kristersson said: “We will take part in those discussions and of course that is absolutely a possibility,” he said on the sidelines of a military exercise in Sweden’s capital.
“There needs to be a very clear mandate for those forces and I don’t think we can see that until we have come further in those negotiations. But Sweden, we are normally a part of strengthening security in our part of the world, so I foresee us to be a part of that this time as well.”
Swedish Foreign Minister Maria Malmer Stenergard told public service broadcaster Swedish Radio on Monday that a just and sustainable peace which respected international law would need to be organised first.
“Once we have such a peace established we need to ensure it can be maintained and then our government doesn’t exclude anything,” she said.
U.S. Secretary of State Marco Rubio arrived in Saudi Arabia on Monday ahead of expected talks with Russian officials aimed at ending Moscow’s nearly three-year war in Ukraine.
(Reporting by Tom Little and Anna Ringstrom; writing by Niklas Pollard,Editing by Helen Popper and Ed Osmond)
