Sweden extradites banned PKK member to Turkey: Report
Sweden has extradited a convicted member of the outlawed Kurdistan Workers’ Party (PKK) to Turkey as Ankara presses Stockholm for further steps in exchange for its NATO membership, state media reported on Saturday.
Mahmut Tat, who was sentenced to six years and ten months in prison for PKK membership in Turkey, fled to Sweden in 2015 but his asylum application was rejected.
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Tat arrived in Istanbul on Friday night after being arrested by Swedish police, Anadolu news agency reported.
He was taken by Turkish police shortly after arriving at Istanbul airport and referred to court on Saturday, private broadcaster NTV reported.
Turkey has accused Finland and Sweden in particular of providing a haven for outlawed Kurdish groups it considers “terrorists”, and held back on ratifying their Nato bid despite an agreement in Madrid in June.
Finland and Sweden ended decades of military non-alignment and sought to join NATO in May, after Russia invaded Ukraine.
The decision requires consensus within the US-led defense alliance, but only Turkey and Hungary have yet to ratify their membership.
Minister of Foreign Affairs Mevlut Cavusoglu held trilateral talks with their Swedish and Finnish counterparts on the sidelines of a NATO meeting in Bucharest this week.
“The statements (coming from Sweden) are good, the determination is good but we need to see concrete steps,” Cavusoglu said.
Ankara has said it expects Stockholm to take action on issues such as the extradition of criminals and the freezing of terrorist assets.
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