Sweden’s Left Party leader criticizes Riksdag members for posing with the PKK terrorist group’s symbol
STOCKHOLM
The leader of Sweden’s Left Party criticized a group of parliamentarians from the same party on Friday for posing with rags, which symbolizes the terrorist group PKK.
Nooshi Dadgostar told Aftonbladet that she does not approve of the recent actions of the Left Party legislators.
The statement came after lawmakers Daniel Riazat, Momodou Malcolm Jallow and Lorena Delgado Varas in July posed with rags, representing the PKK/YPG terror outfit, and shared the images on social media.
Last month, Sweden’s Prime Minister Magdalena Andersson also condemned the left-wing parliamentarians for posing with rags that symbolize the terrorist group.
“[This] is extremely inappropriate, Andersson tells the country’s news agency TT and notes that the PKK is a designated terrorist organization not only in Sweden but throughout the EU.
Earlier, Sweden’s foreign minister Ann Linde also called the promotion of the terrorist group “completely unacceptable”.
“The PKK was labeled a terrorist organization back in 1984 by Olof Palme’s government. And with good reason. The PKK has many innocent human lives on its conscience,” she stated on Twitter, tagging Justice Minister Morgan Johansson.
Linde called on the Left Party to immediately stop supporting the terrorist group PKK.
Johansson issued a similar warning to the Left Party on Twitter.
The move by the leftist parliamentarians came despite assurances in an agreement signed between Turkey, Finland and Sweden to fully cooperate with Ankara in the fight against terrorism.
Sweden and Finland formally applied to join NATO in May, a decision spurred by Russia’s war on Ukraine.
However, Turkey, which has been a member of NATO for more than 70 years, opposed the two countries’ bids for membership because of their tolerance and even support for terrorist groups.
A trilateral agreement signed between the countries in June stipulates that Finland and Sweden will not provide support to the YPG/PYD, the PKK’s Syrian offshoot, or to the Fetullah Terrorist Organization (FETO) – the group behind the defeated coup in Turkey in 2016 – – and said that Ankara provides full support to Finland and Sweden against threats to their national security.
Following the agreement, the leaders of NATO’s 30 members signed the countries’ accession protocol, an important step before their formal entry into the alliance. Legislators of all standing members, including Turkey’s parliament, must now ratify the bids before the process can be completed.
Turkish President Recep Tayyip Erdogan reiterated on Monday that Ankara will not take a positive stance on membership bids unless Stockholm and Helsinki meet their pledges to fight terrorism.
With the US action, 23 allies have now signed on to the countries’ entry into NATO, and Biden urged members who have not yet “to complete their own ratification processes as quickly as possible.”
*Writing by Zehra Nur Duz
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