The Swedish authorities have extradited to Turkey a member of the Kurdistan Workers’ Party (PKK), considered by Ankara as a terrorist organization, in the context of the Turkish government’s refusal to allow Sweden to join NATO precisely because it harbors individuals wanted for membership of this group.
The extradited person has been identified as Mahmut Tat, a member of the Union of Kurdish Communities, the «umbrella» group which unites among others the PKK, sentenced to six years and ten months in prison in Sweden, reports the official Turkish news agency Anatolia.
Tat applied for asylum in Sweden in 2015 due to his sentence, but was denied.
Turkey alleges a lack of cooperation from Sweden and Finland in resolving extraditions of PKK members and has denounced both countries for not complying with the agreement signed in the margins of the NATO summit in Madrid.
It therefore calls for speeding up the extradition of alleged terrorists wanted by the Turkish authorities as an «indispensable» condition for achieving NATO enlargement.
