Turkey’s President Recep Tayyip Erdogan has warned that Sweden should not «wait» for Turkish support for NATO membership today, in remarks raising the tone following the recent burning of Qurans during a demonstration in Stockholm.
«If respect is not shown, I am sorry but there will be no support from our side on the NATO issue,» Erdogan said Monday at the end of a government meeting, according to Bloomberg news agency. «Don’t expect such support from us,» he added.
The burning of the Koran during a protest last week has added to a series of grievances that, in Ankara’s eyes, are unacceptable. The Turkish government had already protested the destruction of an effigy of Erdogan at an earlier rally, which has left NATO enlargement at an impasse.
Sweden and Finland depend on the approval of the 30 member states of the Atlantic Alliance to join, but so far they only have the approval of 28 – in addition to Turkey, Hungary has yet to complete the formalities. The Turkish authorities have demanded from those of the Nordic countries more commitments in the persecution of Kurdish groups catalogued as terrorists by Ankara.
Source: (EUROPA PRESS)
