Incident in Sweden, after which Turkish officials called to protest and outrage over the provocation against President Erdogan in front of the Turkish Embassy in Stockholm.
Akif Cagatay Kilic, Erdogan’s chief adviser, said on X, that in Sweden, under the guise of freedom, all kinds of crimes and insults have become free to be committed and crimes of a completely unthinkable nature are being committed, while hatred and terrorist propaganda have become commonplace. He also condemned the attack on the president and said that their indifferent attitude would impoverish the relations between two counties other than turning Sweden into “a puppet in the hands of terrorist organisations”.
AK Party spokesman Omer Celik said that hate crimes and terrorist propaganda cannot be allowed to threaten democratic values, calling on the Swedish authorities to stop hate crimes and terrorist propaganda. He also warned:
We will continue to fight resolutely against all attacks against our president and the values of the Republic of Turkey. Those who carry out these attacks and those who defend them are part of the same ugliness. Fighting this mentality is necessary to defend democratic values.
Cevdet Yılmaz, Vice President, explained that Turkey cordially expects that Sweden will not allow such provocative actions and will not tolerate such initiatives, calling on the country to take immediate legal action against the perpetrators.
“We will never compromise on our resolute struggle and righteous stance against all attacks and provocative attempts against our president, our country, our people and our religious values,” he added.
Back to February 2022 when Sweden applied to join NATO, Turkey rejected the request, arguing that Stockholm must stop terrorism and Islamophobic provocations on its territory in order to gain membership, which led to various provocative actions across the country against Turkey, the Turkish flag, Erdogan and the Muslim holy book Quran.
Sweden dispatches to the new anti-terrorism law of June 1 as an argument for membership, but Turkish officials say the main purpose of is to be enforced and a final decision will be made by the Turkish parliament this autumn.
