Swedish far-right leader calls Erdogan “Islamist dictator”
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Stockholm (AFP) – The leader of the far-right Sweden Democrats has attacked Turkish President Recep Tayyip Erdogan as an “Islamist dictator” as Ankara maintains its objections to accepting Stockholm’s bid for NATO membership.
Jimmie Åkesson, whose party currently supports the Swedish government, did so in an interview with Dagens Nyheter published on Wednesday.
There are limits to how far the country would go to appease Turkey to secure its NATO membership “…because at the end of the day it’s an anti-democratic system and a dictator we’re dealing with,” Akesson told the paper.
Akesson also questioned whether Turkish President Recep Tayyip Erdogan, who prides himself on never having lost a national election in 20 years of rule, could be called democratically elected.
“I am the party leader of the anti-Islamic party SD and I have strong opinions about an Islamist dictator like Erdogan. He is elected by the people, yes. But so is Putin in that sense,” Akesson said.
The anti-immigration Sweden Democrats (SD) rose to the country’s second largest party in the Riksdag election in September with 20.54 percent of the vote. Their support is crucial to support Prime Minister Ulf Kristersson’s right-wing coalition government.
Turkey terms
Turkey and Hungary are the only two countries that have not yet ratified Sweden’s NATO membership.
Ankara wants Stockholm to crack down on activists close to the outlawed Kurdistan Workers’ Party (PKK) before it will approve Sweden’s NATO bid.
It also wants them to go after people accused of ties to Fethullah Gulen, a US-based preacher whom it accuses of involvement in a failed coup in 2016, but whom Washington has refused to extradite.
Akesson’s comments come a week after pro-Kurdish activists hung a picture of Erdogan by the legs outside Stockholm City Hall. The display was meant to evoke the fate of Italy’s dictator Benito Mussolini, whose body was strung up after he was shot dead in 1945.
Both the Turkish and Swedish governments condemned the act, but it sparked a debate in Sweden about the need to avoid sacrificing freedom of expression.
Turkey and Sweden signed a memorandum of understanding at the end of June, paving the way for the membership process to begin. But Ankara says its demands remain unmet – in particular for the extradition of Turkish citizens Turkey wants to prosecute for “terrorism”.
The Swedish government has emphasized that the Swedish judiciary has the last word in these cases – and that the courts are independent.
On Saturday, Erdogan’s foreign policy adviser Ibrahim Kalin told reporters that the country was “not in a position” to ratify Sweden’s NATO membership.
© 2023 AFP