Turkey is “not in a position” to ratify Sweden’s NATO membership in the current situation, he said on Saturday Ibrahim Kalina close adviser to the president Recep Tayyip Erdogan after the new ‘incident’ that happened this week.
“We are not in a position to send the law to the parliament for ratification because we have a real problem in that regard,” he said, adding that there is a danger that the representatives will reject it.
Ankara on Thursday condemned a video montage made by a group close to the Kurdistan Workers’ Party (PKK) in Sweden, in which a puppet with the likeness of President Erdogan hangs by its feet and calls him a “dictator”.
The Ministry of Foreign Affairs invited the Swedish ambassador to Ankara for an interview.
The latest incident occurred at a time when Turkey is blocking the entry of Sweden and Finland into NATO, and has been doing so since May, accusing that country of providing refuge on its territory to members of the Kurdistan Workers’ Party (PKK) and allied organizations, all of which it considers terrorist groups. .
“We have been working on this case for six, seven months and it is not good for Sweden to be presented in this light,” Kalin told reporters from international media. “We want to move forward, but if incidents like this continue, it will only slow down the process.”
Kalin believes that Sweden should send a “clear message” about its stance towards PKK members on its territory.
“They should, for example, guarantee that PKK members can no longer recruit people or collect money on Swedish territory,” he said, adding that the new Swedish government had taken some important steps, including the Swedish Prime Minister’s visit to Ankara shortly after came to power, as well as “amendments to the constitution, which is also a positive step”.
Despite this, in his opinion, we should wait another “six months” before the new laws are confirmed in the parliament.
Kalin added that Turkey “is not asking Sweden or Finland for anything that is not in accordance with their law” and added that they are “very realistic”.
The Turkish government has called for the expulsion of several members of the PKK and members of the Fetö movement (the acronym Ankara uses for the movement of imam and preacher Fethullah Gülen), accused of inciting the 2016 coup.