Kalın halts interview due to ‘dishonest journalism’

ANKARA

İbrahim Kalın, the spokesperson of the Turkish Presidency, abruptly ended an interview with a Swedish journalist on Nov. 30 and accused him of not practicing “honest journalism.”

In the interview on Sweden Public TV, Kalın accused Diamant Salihu of having a “different agenda” and making baseless accusations against Türkiye after the journalist said: “There are many drug dealers and crime gang members living in Türkiye who are wanted by the Swedish police,” and asked if “Türkiye is becoming a new center for drug dealers.”

“You are accusing an entire country of something terrible,” Kalın answered, stressing that “Türkiye is not a haven for criminals.”

The country gives a very severe fight against any kind of drug dealers and illegal human trafficking, he noted.

Kalın didn’t let Salihu continue and said, “That is the PKK speaking, that is FETÖ speaking. That is not honest journalism,” and cut off the interview, referring to the terrorist organizations.

Together with Finland, Sweden earlier this year ditched its longstanding policies of non-alignment, asking to join NATO because of Russia’s invasion of Ukraine and how it reshuffled Europe’s security.

In June, Türkiye, Sweden and Finland struck a deal that included provisions for the extradition of terrorists and sharing of information.

Sweden and Finland had taken some steps to address Türkiye’s concerns but Ankara said more concrete actions are needed for the Turkish Parliament’s ratification of their accession to the alliance.

Out of 30 allied nations, only Türkiye and Hungary have not pledged parliamentary approval to Sweden and Finland.

“We exchanged a series of ideas with the police and their colleagues in Türkiye to speed up the fight against the terrorist threat to Türkiye from the PKK,” Oscar Stenström, the Swedish chief negotiator leading the NATO bid talks, told local radio after Turkish, Swedish and Finnish delegations met in Stockholm on Nov. 25.