2023-07-04 07:28:00
Erdogan’s early approval of Sweden’s NATO membership seems increasingly unlikely. Once again he presents himself as a critic of the West – he doesn’t omit Germany either.
A few days before the NATO summit in Vilnius, Turkish President Recep Tayyip Erdogan sharpened his tone towards Sweden and also indirectly attacked the United States. A commitment by Türkiye to a NATO-Sweden’s accession before or at the meeting in the Lithuanian capital thus seems increasingly unlikely. Sweden must do its “homework”, said the President after a cabinet meeting in Ankara on Monday evening.
Die Türkiye will “not back down” unless the country changes its approach to “separatist organizations” and followers of preacher Fetullah Gülen. Ankara is demanding from Stockholm the extradition of Swedish citizens whom the Turkish judiciary considers terrorists and a ban on demonstrations displaying symbols of the terrorist group PKK. Erdogan accused Sweden of “delaying tactics” on Monday.
In an indirect dig at Washington, he also said: “We recognize the aim of the dirty games played with the help of the media.” He was referring to a report by the Archyde.com news agency in which Erdogan’s son was accused of allegedly planned but never paid bribes been linked. In Ankara, American authorities are accused of having leaked the story in order to put pressure on Turkey. It’s obvious that those who thought they could succeed with hitting below the belt didn’t know the Turks, he said Erdogan.
Erdogan: Pain about NSU and Solingen “still fresh”
With his own drastic comparisons, the Turkish President once again sharply criticized the court-approved burning of the Koran in front of a mosque in Stockholm on the first day of the Islamic Festival of Sacrifice. Just as it does not mean freedom to burn down a church, it is not an expression of freedom to burn a Koran. At the same time, he used the opportunity for an all-round attack on the “West”. The burning of the Koran is “a new manifestation of hostility towards Muslims and the Islamspreading like a cancer in the West”.
As evidence, he referred to the disproportionately greater international attention to the fate of the five occupants in the imploded submersible “Titan” compared to hundreds of refugees who drowned in the Mediterranean. He also referred to the unrest in Francewhich is now “reaping the storm it sowed,” rumbled the president.
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Erdogan did not spare Germany either. He spoke of the NSU murders in the early 2000s and the arson attack in Solingen 30 years ago. The pain about it is “still fresh”. After his speech, a breakthrough appears at the meeting of the foreign ministers and intelligence chiefs of Turkey, Sweden and Finland with the NATO Secretary General scheduled for Thursday Jens Stoltenberg unlikely.
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