Turkey announced on Saturday January 21 that it had canceled a planned visit by Sweden’s defense minister after Stockholm approved an anti-Turkish demonstration in the country’s capital to take place during the day. ” Visit [de] Pal Jonson in Turkey lost meaning and importance on January 27, so we canceled the visit,” said Turkey’s Defense Minister Hulusi Akar. The purpose of this visit was to try to resolve Ankara’s objections to Sweden’s accession to NATO.
Ankara has been upset by the permission given to the Swedish-Danish right-wing extremist Rasmus Paludan to demonstrate on Saturday in front of the Turkish embassy in the Swedish capital. Rasmus Paludan expressed his intention to “burn the Koran” in front of the legation. A pro-Kurdish demonstration is also planned for Saturday in Sweden. On Friday, Turkey summoned the Swedish ambassador in Ankara to “strongly condemn this provocative action, which clearly constitutes a hate crime,” according to a diplomatic source.
Mannequin hanged
It was the second time in days that the Swedish representative in Ankara was summoned by the Foreign Ministry after a video showing a hanged mannequin named President Recep Tayyip Erdogan was released last week. This staging was staged by a group close to the Rojava Committee, an organization that supports Syria’s Kurds.
Turkey has blocked Sweden and Finland from joining NATO since May 2022, accusing them of being Kurdish activists and sympathizers it calls “terrorists”, particularly those of the Kurdistan Workers’ Party (PKK). Iraq. For Ankara, any possible progress depends on Swedish initiatives to extradite people accused by Turkey of terrorism or taking part in the 2016 coup attempt against Mr Erdogan.
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