Turkey will oppose Sweden’s NATO membership after Stockholm protest sees Koran burned
Turkish President Recep Tayyip Erdogan says his country will oppose Sweden’s bid to join NATO, citing pro-Kurdish protests in Stockholm this weekend.
Turkey has long Sweden failed for its tolerance of the Kurdistan Workers’ Party, or PKK, a group that Turkey, the United States and the European Union have condemned as a terrorist organization. Rasmus Paludan, a Swedish politician, burned a Koran outside the Turkish embassy during a protest this weekend, and the PKK joined other pro-Kurdish groups in a separate protest.
“It is clear that those who allowed such insolence to happen in front of our embassy can no longer expect any charity from us regarding their application for NATO membership,” Erdogan said on Monday. “So you’re going to let terrorist organizations run out on your roads and streets and then expect our support to get into NATO. It’s not happening.”
“They will not see any support from us on the NATO issue,” unless Sweden starts respecting Turkey’s views, he added.
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Sweden and Finland were invited to apply for membership in NATO in 2022 after Russia’s invasion of Ukraine. However, each new member must be approved by unanimous consent, and Turkey is the only country that opposes Sweden’s membership.
The PKK has operated as a rebel group in northern Syria harassing Turkey for decades.
Sweden announced changes to its anti-terror laws in an attempt to address Turkey’s concerns in June 2022, but Erdogan was not happy.
Erdogan last week demanded that Sweden expel about 130 PKK members he has deemed terrorists.
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“We said look, so if you don’t hand over your terrorists to us, we can’t pass it [approval of the NATO application] through the parliament anyway,” Erdogan said at the time. “For this to pass the parliament, first of all you have to hand over 100, approx. 130 of these terrorists, to us.”
The Associated Press contributed to this report.