Sweden and Turkey give mixed messages over NATO bid

Sweden insisted on Monday that it was in a "good position" with Turkey in terms of its NATO membership. This claim came despite Ankara demanding Stockholm deport hundreds of "terrorists" and tensions arising from an effigy of Turkish President Recep Tayyip Erdogan shown hanging in the Swedish capital.

"I think we are still in a very good position," Prime Minister Ulf Kristersson told reporters. "The situation in terms of the negotiations, or rather the follow-up of the memorandum, is going well."

Erdogan demands extraditions as time runs out

At the same time, however, President Erdogan said that Sweden and Finland must extradite 130 people his government says participated in a 2016 coup attempt in Turkey.

"We said look, so if you don't hand over your terrorists to us, we can't pass it (approval of the NATO application) through the parliament anyway," Erdogan said late on Sunday.

"For this to pass the parliament, first of all you have to hand more than 100, around 130 of these terrorists to us," Erdogan said.

Following Russia's invasion of Ukraine, the new Nordic countries applied to join the alliance. Turkey and Hungary have been the lone holdouts in approving their applications.

Erdogan insists that the countries hand over a list of suspects, many of them Kurdish. Critics say that any connection to the attempted coup has been fabricated and that many of the people are on the list for supporting Kurdish nationalism.

Erdogan spokesman Ibrahim Kalin also said over the weekend that time was running out for Turkey to ratify the bids before national elections in May.

Erdogan effigy prompts diplomatic row

Last June, the three countries signed a pact stating that Stockholm and Helsinki would address Ankara's "pending deportation or extradition requests of terror suspects expeditiously and thoroughly." Sweden then implemented regulations that would pave the way for tougher anti-terror laws, however, little has moved since then.

Indeed, relations between Sweden and Turkey became increasingly strained last week when the Kurdish Rojava Committee of Sweden published a video on social media comparing Erdogan to Italian fascist dictator Benito Mussolini. In the video, an effigy of Erdogan hanging by the feet, mimicking how Mussolini was killed, could also been seen.

"History shows how dictators end up," the video said.

Prime Minister Kristersson accused the group of trying to "sabotage" the country's NATO bid, and his government condemned the effigy. Ankara summoned the Swedish ambassador, saying that Stockholm had not reacted strongly enough to the incident. On Monday however, Swedish prosecutors said that they would not be launching criminal charges against the group.

Speaking to the Aftonbladet daily, public prosecutor Lucas Eriksson said his office had received a complaint of "defamation" related to the effigy.

"But I did not think it could amount to defamation," he said.

es/wmr (AFP, Reuters)