Apr 28, Colombo: Sri Lanka today rejected the accusation by the Swedish Foreign Minister that he was denied entry to the country to participate in a joint mission with his British and French counterparts.

Sri Lanka's Foreign Ministry issuing a statement today said that the allegation was baseless, as there was no formal application received for a visa by the Sri Lanka Embassy in Stockholm.

"At no instance did the Sri Lanka Government deny entry to Minister Bildt. In fact, an invitation had been extended by Foreign Minister Rohitha Bogollagama, to his Swedish counterpart to visit Sri Lanka in early May," the Ministry statement said.

Sri Lanka said when the visit by the Foreign Secretary of Britain David Miliband and Foreign Minister of France Bernard Kouchner, was discussed with Sri Lankan officials both at presidential and ministerial levels, there was no indication of the participation of the Swedish Foreign Minister Carl Bildt.

The visit by the French and British officials is solely on a bilateral basis and not of in terms of their membership in a regional or United Nations context, the government said adding that facilitating visits by three foreign ministers at one given time with such a short notice is rather unmanageable.

"In addition, there is an EU-TROIKA visit scheduled to take place from 12 – 13 May 2009 where Sweden would be represented. It was in these circumstances that Sri Lanka requested that the visit of the Swedish Foreign Minister be undertaken in early May, which was communicated to the Swedish Foreign Ministry," the statement said.

"It is extremely regrettable that the Government of Sri Lanka is being wrongly accused of preventing the visit of the Swedish Foreign Minister by stating that it would be interpreted as a challenge to the dialogue with the EU and consequences will follow bilaterally and multilaterally. It needs to be understood that in this instance there had been no formal prior consultations with the government of Sri Lanka with regard to the visit of the Swedish Foreign Minister. The statements made in this regard seem to be emanating from a unilateral decision made on the part of Sweden and the EU with regard to the said visit," the government stated.