On 6th April 2016, the Egyptian Council for Foreign Affairs received a delegation from The Embassy of Sweden in Cairo. The delegation was led by Ambassador Charlotta Sparre, the Ambassador of Sweden in Cairo and included Swedish Ambassador Birgitta Holst-Alani, the ex-president of the Swedish Institute in Alexandria and currently a team member of Mr. De Mistura, the United Nations special envoy for the Syrian crisis, Dr. Robert Egnell, Assistant Professor of Security, Strategy and Leadership at the Swedish Defense University and Susann Nilsson, Counselor/Deputy Ambassador of the Swedish Embassy. Ambassador Mounir Zaharan, Mrs. Anisa Hassouna, Ambassador Ezzat Saad, Ambassador Mohamed Hagazy, Mr. Kamal Abo Okeel and Dr. Nehal Fahmy were present on behalf of the council.
Ambassador Birgitta addressed the council and recalled the period she worked at the Swedish Institute in Alexandria in 2014 while expressing her content to be working once again in the Middle Eastern Region through Ms. De Mistura’s delegation in Syria. She also made reference to her role in peace talks in Geneva in which she solely handled public service continuity in the reconstruction and development of Syria, i.e. the humanitarian approach. She added that the political role itself was played by the parties to the crisis. Amb. Birgitta also stated that the process of peace talks is quite slow and expressed her discontent with the method by which the suspended issues are handled while confirming that most of discussions are focusing only on the procedural and organizational debates rather than substantive matters. She added that the UN envoy would handle such matters in the coming round of negotiation expected to be held on 11 April 2016.
She added that Mr. De Mistura announced at the beginning of his appointment to the Syrian case that tasks will be divided into four main groups, each of them were specialized in certain tasks. There were subsequent discussions concerning various regional affairs initiated by council members including Mrs. Anissa Hassouna, Dr. Kamal Abu Okeel, Ambassador Mohammed Hegazy, and Ambassador Dr. Ezzat Saad
