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Stockholm streets locked down as police deal with would-be bomber


    STOCKHOLM (Reuters) - Large parts of central Stockholm were sealed off on Thursday as police negotiated with a man threatening to set off explosives.

    Police in the Swedish capital said they had established contact with the man, who had barricaded himself inside a building near the headquarters of the Moderates - the main party in the government - which had since been evacuated.

    "We are now in a negotiating stage," spokesman Kjell Lindgren said, adding that the police's priority would be removing the dangerous object the man said he was carrying.

    Swedish news agency TT reported that the man was said to be wearing a bomb belt.

    The man walked into a human rights organisation in Stockholm's old town at 10:24 a.m. (1224 GMT), saying he was carrying explosives, police said.

    "He expressed threats against the Moderates and the (opposition) Social Democrats and we have therefore sealed off the areas around the Moderates' headquarters in the old town and the Social Democrats' headquarters at Sveavagen," Lindgren said.

    The Social Democrats and the Moderates declined to comment.

    (Reporting by Johan Sennero and Anna Ringstrom; Editing by Alistair Scrutton and Robin Pomeroy)