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ISTANBUL, Jan. 23 (AP) — Turkey’s president raised serious doubts about NATO’s expansion on Monday, after warning Sweden not to count on its support for joining the military alliance after weekend protests by anti-Islam militants and pro-Kurdish groups in Stockholm.
President Recep Tayyip Erdogan slammed Rasmus Paludan’s Koran-burning protests on Saturday, saying it was an insult to everyone, especially Muslims. He was particularly angry at Swedish authorities for allowing demonstrations to take place outside the Turkish embassy in Stockholm under the “protection” of security forces.
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“It is clear that those who allowed this despicable act to take place in front of our embassy can no longer expect any help from us with their NATO membership application,” Erdogan said in his first comment on the weekend’s protests He said Sweden must have calculated the consequences of allowing Paludan to demonstrate.
The burning of Islam’s holy book has angered across Turkey’s political spectrum, just as Sweden and Finland have come to the fore among NATO members after abandoning their longstanding policy of military non-alignment following Russia’s war on Ukraine.
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Russian President Vladimir Putin is now set to benefit as a potential expansion of the world’s most powerful military alliance appears to be in jeopardy.
Erdogan has also criticized Sweden for allowing pro-Kurdish protests, with demonstrators waving flags of various Kurdish groups, including the Kurdistan Workers Party, or PKK, which has waged a decades-long insurgency against Turkey.
The PKK is considered a terrorist organization in Turkey, the European Union and the United States, but its symbols are not banned in Sweden.
“So you’d have terrorist groups in your streets and expect us to support joining NATO. That didn’t happen,” Erdogan said, referring to applications from Sweden and Finland to join the military alliance. If Sweden doesn’t respect NATO member Turkey or Muslims, then “they won’t see any support from us on NATO issues,” he said.
A joint memorandum signed by Turkey, Sweden and Finland in June prevented Turkey from vetoing their membership bid at the NATO summit in Madrid, where they identified the PKK as a terrorist organization and pledged to stop its activities. The ongoing protests have angered Ankara, which said Sweden must address Turkey’s security concerns and asked the Turkish parliament to approve their NATO request.
“If they love members of terrorist groups and enemies of Islam so much, we advise them to hand over national security to them,” he added, as hundreds of pro-Kurdish protesters walked past Turkish President Recep Tayyip on Saturday A photo of Erdogan, whose likeness was hung from a lamppost during an earlier protest. In response, Turkish officials called off bilateral talks.
Swedish officials stress that freedom of speech is guaranteed by the Swedish constitution, which grants people broad rights to express their opinions publicly, but does not allow speech that incites violence or hate speech. Demonstrators must apply to the police for a public assembly permit. The police can only refuse to issue such permits in exceptional circumstances, such as a threat to public safety.
Senior Swedish officials said free speech was vital to democracy, while criticizing Paludan’s actions as disrespectful to them, whom they disagreed with.
Paludan, an anti-Islam activist who holds both Danish and Swedish citizenship, founded far-right parties in both countries but failed to win any seats in national, regional or municipal elections. In last year’s Swedish parliamentary elections, his party won just 156 votes nationwide. His burning of the Koran sparked counter-protests in Turkey over the weekend, with demonstrators burning his picture and a Swedish flag. (Associated Press)
(This is an unedited and auto-generated story from a Syndicated News feed, the content body may not have been modified or edited by LatestLY staff)
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