Swedish Prime Minister Fredrik Reinfeldt met visiting Zimbabwe Prime Minister Morgan Tsvangarai in Stockholm on Tuesday. The two leaders discussed the situation in Zimbabwe, its development and Swedish EU presidency.

At a press conference after their meeting, Prime Minister Reinfeldt said that Zimbabwe had encountered great difficulty and now the most important thing is to improve life of the people in Zimbabwe.

He promised that during Swedish EU presidency, Sweden and the EU will do its best to help Zimbabwe in its transition to democracy and respect of human rights.

"If Zimbabwe can carry out reforms, resume rule of law, give media freedom, have transparency in financial systems and conduct reform in central bank, I believe Prime Minister Tsvangarai is committed to these reforms. And to help this is one of the important tasks during Swedish EU presidency," said Reinfeldt.

Prime Minister Tsvangarai said that Zimbabwe is indeed entering its transitional period towards democracy and rule of law.

"Over the past ten years, Zimbabwe was treated almost as a paralyzed country. But now Zimbabwe is changing."

Meanwhile, he urged Sweden and other countries to provide all kinds of support, be it projects or targeted programs while Zimbabwe is carrying various kinds of reforms and making its own efforts.

Being asked about how he can convince the west to help Zimbabwe while President Robert Mugabe is still in position, Tsvangarai said "it is Zimbabwan people who have decided that we need freedom, we need economic development no matter with President Mugabe or not. I don’t want to comment on Mugabe's past record. But now for the interest of Zimbabwe, we have decided to have a new path, we will work together to make Zimbabwe's problems solved. Like any country which has traumatic experiences, it is time for compromise, for reconstruction and push Zimbabwe forward. This is the decision of our coalition government."

After the conference, Prime Minister Tsvangarai will meet Swedish foreign aid minister Gunnila Carlsson to have detailed discussion about development aid.

By Xuefei Chen, People's Daily Online, Stockholm.