Who will pay the price for the Erdogan deal?

For Cemil Aygan, the point seems clear: if Sweden extradites him to Turkey, his life will be over. That’s what he told Swedish broadcaster SVT. He had been a member of the Kurdish Workers’ Party PKK since the 1970s, which he is said to have left in 1985. He lived in Sweden for a long time, he was active as a local politician for the bourgeois moderates. But he is also one of the people whose extradition Turkey has demanded. Turkey describes him as an active PKK terrorist, “I’m not,” he says.

Thomas Gutschker

Political correspondent for the European Union, NATO and Benelux countries based in Brussels.

Matthias Wysuwa

Political correspondent for Northern Germany and Scandinavia based in Hamburg.

There was great relief in Sweden and Finland when the two countries managed to reach an agreement with Turkey shortly before the start of the NATO summit in Madrid. Ankara blocked the two countries’ accession process for a long time, and nervousness in the north increased. After the first relief, however, critical voices rose, especially in Stockholm. The issue at stake was whether too many concessions had been made to Turkey – and whether things could now turn dangerous for Kurds in Sweden.

Amineh Kakabaveh, an unattached parliamentarian with Kurdish roots, spoke of a “dark day”. The Kurds would be sacrificed to a cynical policy. The Left Party and the Greens also criticized the agreement and asked Foreign Minister Ann Linde to explain herself in Parliament. Party veterans even came from the ranks of Prime Minister Magdalena Andersson’s Social Democrats. Former Foreign Minister Lena Hjelm-Wallén recognized the deal as a necessary evil on the road to Sweden’s NATO membership. But she also expressed that the whole process “feels uncomfortable”.

How specific are the appointments is open

The government seems particularly uncomfortable with the question of whether there have actually been concrete promises of extradition, as Turkish President Recep Tayyip Erdogan claims. He was silent for a long time at the NATO summit, only to announce his “diplomatic victory” at the end. He also made it clear that Sweden and Finland have yet to pass him on their way to the alliance. Before he could start ratifying membership, the two would first have to fulfill their “promises”: to supply Turkey with weapons, act against Kurdish terrorist groups and the Gülen movement, and cooperate with the Turkish judiciary. “Sweden has promised to extradite 73 terrorists,” Erdogan said. Originally there were 60. This led to many questions from Swedish and Finnish journalists in Madrid, because on Tuesday the Turkish Minister of Justice had spoken of 33 extradition requests, 21 for Sweden and 12 for Finland. However, Erdogan insisted on his number and linked it only to Sweden. When asked that the agreement only states that both countries “will deal with Turkish requests promptly and completely”, he replied: “It depends on how we understand the agreement”.

So Stockholm is now concerned about how this agreement should be understood. From Helsinki, it was said that there were no more extradition requests. In the last ten years, 16 applications have been received from Turkey and two have been granted. In Stockholm, Andersson tried to appease and made it clear that the deal would not change much. They do not deport Swedish citizens and always work in accordance with Swedish law and international agreements.

The PKK is also classified as a terrorist organization in Sweden. The Supreme Court twice refused to extradite Aygan to Turkey. The reason given was that he was threatened with persecution. Aygan referred these court rulings to SVT, saying he wasn’t too worried despite the deal. But he doesn’t have a Swedish passport.