The Turkish Foreign Ministry on Thursday summoned the Swedish ambassador to Ankara, Staffan Herrstrom, in protest against a new demonstration in Stockholm that allegedly showed support for the Kurdistan Workers’ Party (PKK).
According to Ankara, the demonstration was not only chanting in favor of the PKK, which is considered a terrorist organization in Turkey, but also against President Recep Tayyip Erdogan, reports the Anatolia news agency.
Thus, representatives of the Turkish Foreign Ministry have conveyed to Herrstrom their deep condemnation of what happened, at the same time as they have conveyed to him the need for Stockholm to nip such demonstrations in the bud.
According to the information reported by the Turkish news agency, a group of PKK supporters gathered on Wednesday in the vicinity of the Stockholm City Hall, where they hung by the feet a puppet representing Erdogan.
From Sweden, the Foreign Minister, Tobias Billstrom, has come out to disassociate himself from the demonstration and show the firm condemnation of the Swedish Executive for what happened. «Portraying a popularly elected president as executed in front of City Hall is abominable,» he said.
«The government protects an open debate on political choices, but strongly distances itself from threats and hatred against political representatives,» Billstrom said on his official profile on the social network Twitter.
Turkey has demanded from Sweden and Finland a thorough prosecution of PKK supporters, among other issues, to facilitate the accession of both Scandinavian nations to the Atlantic Alliance, still pending ratification by the Turkish and Hungarian parliaments.
The NATO General Secretariat has repeatedly defended the commitment of Stockholm and Helsinki to what was signed in the margins of the leaders’ summit in Madrid to address Turkey’s concerns in combating groups such as the PKK.
Source: (EUROPA PRESS)
