The Turkish Public Prosecutor’s Office, at the request of President Recep Tayyip Erdogan’s lawyers, has opened an investigation into a protest in Stockholm in which attendees simulated the hanging of the Turkish president, in the midst of political controversy over delays in Sweden’s accession to NATO.
The rally took place on Wednesday next to Stockholm City Hall and was attended by «sympathizers» of Kurdish groups such as the Kurdistan Workers’ Party (PKK) or the People’s Protection Units (YPG), according to the official Turkish news agency Anatolia.
Following these developments, the Turkish government already decided on Thursday to summon the Swedish ambassador as a gesture of displeasure, but the case may also go to court following a «criminal complaint» filed with the Public Prosecutor’s Office, as explained on Twitter by lawyer Huseyin Aydin.
From Sweden, the Minister for Foreign Affairs, Tobias Billstrom, has come out in the wake of the controversy to dissociate 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 the City Hall is abominable,» he said.
Turkey has demanded from Sweden and Finland an exhaustive persecution 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.
Source: (EUROPA PRESS)
