Sweden’s refusal of probe over Erdoğan effigy “absurd”: Çavuşoğlu

ANKARA

A Swedish prosecutor’s refusal to probe the incident, where a puppet likened to President Tayyip Erdoğan was hung in Stockholm, was “absurd,” Foreign Minister Mevlüt Çavuşoğlu said on Jan. 17.

The Swedish prosecutor’s decision to not probe the incident is “extremely absurd. We all know what the rule of law means,” Çavuşoğlu said at a joint news conference with his Iranian counterpart Hossein Amir Abdollahian.

The “provocative” incident against Erdoğan was a “racist, hateful, hate crime act,” and therefore, is also against universal values and is a crime according to international law, the minister said.

Sweden should not try to fool Türkiye by identifying the incident as a freedom of speech, the minister said.

“If they think that Sweden is distracting us with word games, we would like to say that they are only deceiving themselves,” Çavuşoğlu stated.

Çavuşoğlu referred to the trilateral memorandum signed by Sweden, Finland and Türkiye that envisages the Nordic countries’ membership to NATO if they meet requests by Ankara on addressing terror threats.

“When you look at Sweden’s testimony in the memorandum, do they have a promise to fight them [terrorists]? Yes, they have. secondly, we are talking about freedom of expression. Is this attack, this provocation a racist attack? Yes,” he stated.

The minister continued, Sweden will “either fall victim to the mines laid by terrorists, or we will all walk forward by considering our safety and fulfilling the commitments in the memorandum. The decision here is on Sweden.”

Sweden and Finland abandoned their long-standing policies of military nonalignment and applied for membership in the military alliance after Russian forces launched a full-scale invasion of Ukraine on Feb. 24.

NATO-member Türkiye hasn’t yet endorsed their accession, which requires unanimous approval from all existing alliance members.

The supporters of the PKK gathered in front of the historical City Hall in the capital Stockholm on Jan. 11 and hung a puppet likened to Erdoğan by the feet and shared video footage of the moment on social media affiliated with the group.

The foreign ministry on Jan. 12 summoned Sweden’s ambassador in Ankara to lodge a protest over the demonstration in Stockholm.