Reuters
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Turkish Defense Minister Hulusi Akar said on Saturday that a planned visit by his Swedish counterpart to Ankara has been canceled after Swedish authorities authorized protests in Stockholm.
The demonstrations scheduled for later Saturday in Stockholm targeted Turkey and Sweden’s efforts to join NATO, raising tensions with Ankara, whose approval is needed for the Nordic country to join the military alliance. to close.
Organizers said about 500-600 people were expected to gather to protest Sweden’s NATO bid and show support for the Kurds in a demonstration that has been cleared by Stockholm police.
Separately, an anti-immigration politician from the far-right fringe, Rasmus Paludan, planned to burn a copy of the Islamic holy book the Koran near the Turkish embassy. A group of pro-Turkish protesters had also been given permission to gather outside the embassy.
“At this point, Swedish Defense Minister Pal Jonson’s visit to Turkey on January 27 has become meaningless. So we canceled the visit,” Akar said.
Jonson planned to travel to Ankara at the invitation of his Turkish counterpart, as Stockholm hopes to nudge Turkey into ratifying its bid to join NATO.
Jonson said separately that he and Akar had met Friday at a meeting of Western allies in Germany and had decided to postpone the planned meeting.
“Our relations with Türkiye are very important to Sweden and we look forward to continuing the dialogue on common security and defense issues at a later date,” he said on Twitter.
Sweden and Finland applied to join NATO last year after Russia’s invasion of Ukraine, but all 30 member states must approve their bids. Turkey has said Sweden in particular must first take a clearer stance against what it sees as terrorists, mainly Kurdish militants and a group it blames for a 2016 coup attempt.
Akar said he had spoken with President Tayyip Erdogan about the lack of measures to limit protests in Sweden against Turkey and conveyed Ankara’s response to Jonson on the sidelines of a Ukrainian Defense Contact Group meeting.
“It is unacceptable not to take action or respond to these (protests). Necessary things had to be done, measures should have been taken,” Akar said, according to a statement from Turkey’s defense ministry.
The Turkish Foreign Ministry had already summoned the Swedish ambassador on Friday because of the planned protests. The ministry said the envoy was told on Friday that the protest by a group sympathizing with the outlawed Kurdistan Workers’ Party (PKK) was considered a violation of agreements between the countries.
Finland and Sweden signed a three-pronged agreement with Turkey in 2022 to address Ankara’s objections to their NATO membership. Sweden says it has fulfilled its part of the memorandum, but Turkey is demanding more, including the extradition of 130 people it considers terrorists.