By Le Figaro with AFP
Posted 11 hours ago, updated 3 hours ago
The Swedish defense minister’s visit should help persuade Ankara to accept Sweden’s entry into NATO.
Turkey announced on Saturday that it had canceled a planned visit by Sweden’s defense minister after permission was granted for an anti-Turkish demonstration to be held in Stockholm. “The visit of Swedish Defense Minister Pal Jonson to Turkey on January 27 lost its meaning and meaning, that’s why we canceled the visit,” said Turkish Defense Minister Hulusi Akar. The aim of this visit was to dispel 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. Under heavy police protection and protected by metal barriers, this anti-Islam and anti-immigration activist has announced that he has burned a copy of the Koran, an AFP journalist noted. “Anyone who thinks freedom of expression shouldn’t apply has to live somewhere else,” said this regular guest at the Koran burning in a hate speech that lasted almost an hour.
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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. 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 identified as President Recep Tayyip Erdogan was released last week. This staging was staged by a group close to the Rojava Committee, in support of the Kurds of Syria.
Turkey has been blocking Sweden – and Finland – from joining NATO since May, accusing them of harboring Kurdish militants and sympathizers it calls “terrorists”, particularly those of the Kurdistan Workers’ Party (PKK) and its allies in northern Syria and Turkey Iraq. For Ankara, any progress depends on Sweden’s efforts to extradite people accused by Turkey of terrorism or involvement in the 2016 attempted coup against President Erdogan.
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