Turkey: Sweden complicit in hate crimes, NATO talks pointlessly
Turkey has been enraged by a Koran-burning protest by anti-Islam activist Rasmus Paludan on Saturday and has criticized Swedish authorities for allowing the demonstration to take place outside the Turkish embassy. Turkey’s president this week cast serious doubt on NATO expansion and warned Sweden not to expect support for its bid to join the military alliance.
“The Swedish government has participated in this heinous action by allowing it to take place,” Cavusoglu said during a joint press conference with his visiting Serbian counterpart. “It’s that simple. No one can say otherwise.”
“In this environment, a tripartite meeting would have been pointless,” Cavusoglu said. “It has been postponed because the current environment would have overshadowed it, it would not be a healthy meeting.”
Sweden and Finland abandoned their long-standing policy of military non-alignment and applied for NATO membership after Russian forces launched a full-scale invasion of Ukraine on February 24. NATO member Turkey has not yet approved their accession, which requires unanimous approval from all existing alliance members.
Asked about the possibility of Finland joining the alliance on its own if Sweden’s bid is further delayed, Cavusoglu said Turkey had not received such a request. However, he said that “the problems we face with Finland are relatively fewer compared to Sweden.”
There was no immediate reaction from Swedish officials to Cavusoglu’s comments.
Anti-Islam activist Paludan, who has both Danish and Swedish citizenship, established far-right parties in both countries that have failed to win any mandates in national, regional or municipal elections. In last year’s parliamentary elections in Sweden, his party received only 156 votes in the entire country.
His burning of the Koran sparked counter-protests in Turkey, where protesters burned his photograph and a Swedish flag.
Egypt’s highest religious institution on Wednesday called on Muslims worldwide to boycott both Swedish and Dutch products after Edwin Wagensveld, Dutch leader of the far-right Pegida movement, tore pages from the Koran near the Dutch parliament in The Hague and trampled on them on Sunday.
Swedish officials have stressed that freedom of speech is guaranteed by the Swedish constitution and gives people extensive rights to express their views publicly, although incitement to violence or hate speech is not allowed.