Pak Sahafat – Islamophobia and desecration of the Quran present the Swedish authorities with a big obstacle in calming a new wave of anger and rage in Turkey at a critical moment and in a situation where Stockholm is trying to join the North Atlantic Treaty Organization (NATO).
According to Pak Sahafat News Agency’s report, the Financial Times newspaper wrote: Following the heinous act of Quran burning, the Swedish Prime Minister and Foreign Minister are trying to reduce public anger in Turkey, not only from the government of this country, but also from the opposition and public opinion.
Sweden on Sunday tried to stop its NATO membership application from derailing as Turkey reacted to the provocative act of burning a copy of the Quran in front of the country’s embassy in Stockholm.
This provocative action was repeated many times before and even led to riots last April.
Swedish Prime Minister Ulf Kristersson tweeted in an attempt to calm the situation: Freedom of speech is a core part of democracy, but what is legal is not necessarily what is right. Burning books that are sacred to many people is deeply disrespectful.
Swedish Foreign Minister Tobias Billström also said: Inciting Islamophobia is terrible. Sweden enjoys extensive freedom of speech, but that does not mean that the Swedish government or myself support the views expressed.
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Turkey had canceled the visit of Swedish Defense Minister Paul Johnson to Ankara before the Koran desecration issue. This was supposed to be the first bilateral meeting of the officials of the two countries after tensions over another action in Sweden. Before that, a Swedish group had hung an effigy of Turkish President Recep Tayyip Erdogan outside the Stockholm City Hall.
Nationalist groups gathered in front of the Swedish consulate in Istanbul on Saturday to recite the Koran. They asked the Turkish government to prevent Sweden from joining NATO.
Paul Levin, director of the Institute of Turkish Studies at Stockholm University, said in this regard: Negotiations on Sweden’s accession to NATO have entered a deep crisis. If Erdogan stays in power, the process of confirming Sweden’s NATO membership could take not just months, but years, unless other NATO allies step in with whatever carrot-and-stick policy is available to convince Ankara.
The Financial Times wrote: Turkey’s differences with Sweden and Finland have given Erdogan unusual leverage in front of his Western partners, and public anger in Turkey could help strengthen his conservative position ahead of the upcoming general elections in Turkey. Erdogan is expected to face a difficult election campaign to retain power in the May elections.
This media added: But the public anger in Turkey regarding the events in Stockholm has also caused a rare agreement between Erdogan and the opposition. Kemal KılıçdaroÄŸlu, head of Turkey’s largest opposition party, condemned the attack on the Koran on Twitter, describing it as a “fascist act that has reached the height of hate crime.”
While Hungary has announced that it will approve the process of joining Sweden and Stockholm to NATO next month, recent events show that Turkey will remain the only opposition to the membership of these two countries in the military alliance.
Turkey had previously expressed its displeasure with Sweden’s accession to NATO due to Sweden’s close relations with Kurdish groups that this country considers terrorist. Erdogan has asked Sweden and Finland to return to Ankara dozens of political refugees who, according to the Turkish president, are Kurdish separatists or were involved in the 2016 coup in Turkey.