Erdoğan image “act of sabotage” against NATO bid
ANKARA, Turkey (AP) – Swedish Prime Minister Ulf Kristersson on Friday condemned a protest by Kurds in central Stockholm where a picture of Turkey’s president was hung from a lamppost as sabotage against Sweden’s attempt to join NATO.
The protest outside the city hall on Wednesday drew an angry reaction from Turkey, a NATO member that had already waited to approve Sweden’s application to become a part of the Western military alliance until the government in Stockholm meets its demands.
The Speaker of the Turkish Parliament, Mustafa Sentop, canceled a visit by Andreas Norlén, the Speaker of the Swedish Parliament, which was scheduled for next Tuesday. Turkish lawmakers must ratify Sweden’s NATO application for the Nordic nation to become a member.
– I think it is regrettable that the visit has been cancelled, says Norlén to TT.
Turkey has made its approval conditional about Stockholm cracking down on Kurdish militants and other groups that Ankara considers a threat to national security. The Turkish Ministry of Foreign Affairs called the Swedish ambassador on Thursday over the Stockholm demonstration.
Kristersson condemned Turkish Recep Tayyip Erdoğan’s image. He told TV4 on Friday that it was “extremely serious” to stage a “mock execution of a foreign democratically elected leader” in a country where two leading politicians have been killed. Sweden’s Prime Minister Olof Palme was murdered in 1986 and Foreign Minister Anna Lindh was fatally stabbed in 2003.
– I would say that this is sabotage against the Swedish NATO application, Kristersson said. “It is dangerous for Swedish security to act in this way.”
Photographs posted on social media showed a mannequin resembling Erdoğan hanging upside down. A group calling itself the Swedish Solidarity Committee for Rojava claimed it was behind the protest. Rojava is a Kurdish name for northern and eastern Syria.
Turkish Foreign Minister Mevlut Cavusoglu said the outlawed Kurdistan Workers’ Party, or PKK, and affiliated Kurdish groups in Syria “lay mines on the path to Sweden’s NATO membership.”
“It is Sweden’s decision whether they want to clear these mines or deliberately step on them,” he said in an interview with Turkish state broadcaster TRT.
Alarmed by Russia’s invasion of Ukraine, Sweden and Finland dropped their long-standing policy of military non-alignment and applied to join NATO in May. All 30 member states must agree to admit the two Nordic neighbors into the security organization.
The Turkish government has pressured Finland and Sweden to crack down on groups it considers terrorist organizations and to extradite people suspected of terror-related crimes. Cavusoglu said last month that Sweden was not even “halfway” in addressing his country’s concerns.
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Jan M. Olsen reported from Copenhagen.