Ankara has blocked Stockholm’s bid for NATO membership, accusing the Nordic nation of harboring Kurdish terrorists
New anti-terror legislation should pave the way for Turkey to sign Sweden’s accession to NATO, Swedish Foreign Minister Tobias Billström said on Wednesday. The Nordic country applied with Finland for membership of the military bloc last year, but Ankara refused to ratify both bids without significant concessions.
“This new legislation will close a loophole in our already existing anti-terrorist legislation,” Billstrom told reporters. “Sweden has not previously banned participation in a terrorist organization. We will do so now.”
The law was passed by Sweden’s Riksdag earlier this month and comes into effect this week. Crucially for Türkiye, it criminalizes membership in the Kurdistan Workers’ Party (PKK), which Ankara considers a terrorist group, and makes it illegal for Swedes to provide the organization with financial or logistical support.
With the law in place, Billstrom said he expects “clear messages to come out… that Sweden is welcome into the NATO family and that there is a high expectation that we will be a member before [the bloc’s upcoming summit in] Vilnius.”
Sweden and Finland renounced their neutrality and applied to join the US-led bloc last summer. Joining NATO, however, requires the unanimous consent of all existing members, and Turkish President Recey Tayyip Erdogan demanded that the two applicants lift an arms embargo against Türkiye, extradite alleged Kurdish and Gulenist terrorists and crack down on PKK activity within their borders.
Finland and Sweden agreed to these demands in a trilateral memorandum signed last June. Ankara deemed Finland compliant only in March after it adopted tough anti-terror legislation, and Sweden’s application has been on hold since then, with Erdogan saying its success “will be directly linked to the concrete steps Sweden will take” in the ‘fight’ against terrorism.”
Sweden could have avoided agreeing to Erdogan’s demands if the Turkish leader had lost his re-election bid on Sunday. His challenger, Kemal Kilicdaroglu, promised in April to overturn Erdogan’s veto if he took power, but Erdogan won a runoff while his party retained control of parliament.
With Erdogan still in the crosshairs, Sweden’s new team is likely to be put to the test soon. Presidential spokesman Fahrettin Altun stated on Tuesday that Turkey wants Sweden to investigate and prosecute a number of people who projected the PKK’s flag on the Swedish parliament building during the Turkish election, and to prevent PKK members from demonstrating at an anti-NATO protest next walk. week.
(RT.com)
Source: sn.dk