Before the anti-Turkish protests in Sweden, Turkey canceled the visit of the Swedish Minister of Defense

On Saturday, January 21, Turkey announced that it had canceled a scheduled visit by the Swedish Minister of Defense, after Stockholm allowed an anti-Turkish demonstration in the country’s capital, to be held during the day. ” the visit [de] Pal Johnson in Turkey on January 27th lost meaning and meaning, so we canceled the visit.”said Turkish Defense Minister Hulusi Akar. The purpose of this visit was to try to remove Ankara’s objections to Sweden’s accession to NATO.

The mandate given to the Danish-Swedish right-wing extremist, Rasmus Paludan, to demonstrate on Saturday in front of the Turkish embassy in the Swedish capital has angered Ankara. Rasmus Paludan expressed his intention to do so “Burn the Qur’an” before the Commission.

On Saturday, Turkish presidential spokesman Ibrahim Kalin condemned the planned demonstration, denouncing A ‘Clear hate crime’. “To allow this measure despite all our warnings is to encourage hate crimes and Islamophobia.”he tweeted. “The attack on sacred values ​​is not freedom, but modern barbarism.”he added.

hanging mannequin

On Friday, Turkey summoned the Swedish ambassador to Ankara over the matter, according to a diplomatic source. It was the second time in a matter of days that the Foreign Ministry had summoned Sweden’s representative in Ankara, after the release of a video last week showing a hanged model named as President Recep Tayyip Erdogan. This measure was carried out by a group close to the Rojava Committee, an organization that supports the Syrian Kurds. A pro-Kurdish demonstration is also scheduled in Sweden on Saturday.

Turkey has been blocking Sweden and Finland from joining NATO since May 2022, accusing them of harboring Kurdish militants and their sympathizers. “terrorists”And Including the PKK and its allies in northern Syria and Iraq. For Ankara, any potential progress depends on Swedish initiatives to extradite people accused of terrorism by Turkey or of participating in the 2016 coup attempt against Erdogan.