Turkey’s ambassador to Sweden, Hakki Emre Yunt, asks the Swedish authorities to extradite the Swedish Riksdag politician Amineh Kakabaveh to Turkey.
The ambassador does this in an interview with the Swedish news agency TT.
– The PKK has links to members of the Riksdag. They work against Turkey in the Riksdag all the time. They are pressuring the Swedish government to adopt a negative attitude towards Turkey, he says.
When asked which politicians he is referring to, the ambassador answers:
– I can only mention Amineh Kakabaveh.
Kakabaveh was elected to the Riksdag, Sweden’s Storting, for the Left Party, but has since 2019 been non-partisan.
– HISTORICAL: NATO Secretary General Jens Stoltenberg met with Finland and Sweden’s ambassadors to NATO on Wednesday 18 May. Video: AP sea view
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That’s how she answers
Turkish President Recep Tayyip Erdogan declared last week that he would not support Sweden’s NATO membership. Erdogan claims that Sweden have terrorists as elected representatives, and the country to support militant Kurds.
In order to get through a Swedish NATO application, Turkey demands that Sweden cut ties with the PKK and other Kurdish organizations, and that the Swedish authorities hand over 33 people on a blacklist.
Turkey considers the PKK to be a terrorist organization. The EU and the US do the same.
– I am a Swedish citizen and I have been elected to represent Swedish citizens in the Riksdag. It is the ambassador who should be sent back to Turkey, Kakabaveh writes in a statement on Instagram.
Then she adds cash:
– The opposition and opinion leaders from the entire political spectrum must mark and explain that Sweden is not crawling for the Islamists in Ankara.
Is on Erdogan’s blacklist
Kakabaveh, who is of Kurdish descent and was born in Iran, told Dagbladet earlier this week that she was sure she was on Turkey’s blacklist.
– Although I have never been in an open fight against Turkey, I have been in a democratic fight for human rights and women’s rights. For Erdogan, both women and Kurds are enemies, she told Dagbladet.
She also reached out to Norway.
– The Nordic countries, including Norway, are naive and cowardly. Everyone bows to Erdogan, and so he has the whole of Europe in his hands, Kakabaveh said.
SWEDEN: The Prime Minister meets with the press on 15 May – says yes to NATO membership. sea view
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“Amazed”
Michael Sahlin, Sweden’s former ambassador to Turkey, is “surprised” that the Turkish authorities go so far as to publicly ask Sweden to extradite a member of its parliament.
– I would think that this makes it even harder to imagine that the government turns on some main issues. It will be quite impossible if an ambassador makes such demands, says Sahlin to the news agency TT.
However, it does not appear that Turkey’s ambassador thinks he will succeed in his request.
– It is difficult to deport their own citizens, but it is up to the Swedish government, says the ambassador.
