The Swedish EU presidency has defended its human rights credentials after adopting a new trade pact with Turkmenistan.
"Human Rights are important to the Swedish presidency and they are indeed an essential element of the agreement," Sweden's EU ambassador Ulrika Barklund-Larsson told EUobserver on Wednesday (29 July).
"More generally, human rights and the rule of law underpin the EU's relations with Turkmenistan, as with the whole Central Asian region."
Ms Barklund-Larsson's...
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Andrew Rettman is EUobserver's foreign editor, writing about foreign and security issues since 2005. He is Polish, but grew up in the UK, and lives in Brussels. He has also written for The Guardian, The Times of London, and Intelligence Online.