2023-06-04 19:16:17
Hundreds of people waving anti-NATO slogans and flags of the Kurdistan Workers’ Party (PKK), Ankara’s pet peeve, marched in Stockholm on Sunday, denouncing new Swedish anti-terror legislation they say was passed under pressure from Turkey to join the alliance.
“They go after the Kurds in Sweden“said Tomas Petterson, a spokesman for the Alliance Against NATO which was organizing the demonstration. The aim of the new legislation is to ensure that Turkish President Recep Tayyip Erdogan”let Sweden join NATO“, he added. Turkey has been blocking Sweden’s entry into the Atlantic Alliance for thirteen months, reproaching it for its leniency towards the Kurdish militants it hosts on its soil. The new law which came into force in Sweden on June 1 brings charges for “participation in a terrorist organization“, strengthening the country’s legislation in this area, one of the conditions set by Turkey to lift its veto on entry into NATO, an alliance of which it has been a member since 1952. The demonstration in the center of Stockholm, entitled “No to NATO, no Erdogan laws in Sweden!“, was organized by a “Alliance against NATO“, which notably includes the Rojava committee, a support group for Kurdish armed groups in Syria.
Re-elected on May 28 at the head of Turkey, President Erdogan calls in particular for the extradition by Sweden of several dozen Kurdish activists. The Turkish government had expressed at the beginning of the week its irritation at the organization of this demonstration by movements close to the PKK.
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