Swedish FM slams Left Party over PKK support

STOCKHOLM

Alamy Photo

Negotiations with Türkiye on Sweden’s NATO bid have become more difficult after members of a local party took photos with flags of the PKK terrorist organization, Swedish Foreign Minister Ann Linde has said.

The incident occurred in the city of Visby when Left Party deputies Daniel Riazat, Momodou Malcolm Jallow and Lorena Delgado Varas posed for a photo waving PKK flags on July 7.

The three members of the parliament then shared the photo on social media.

Speaking to the Swedish Aftonbladet daily, Linde said that Turkish media constantly brings up this incident and similar events.

“It has been brought up many, many times,” she said.

The minister said that although this was freedom of expression under Swedish law, it was a “very inappropriate” situation for the government.

Swedish Prime Minister Magdalena Andersson condemned the three deputies over the incident.

Justice and Interior Minister Morgan Johansson had declared that the PKK has the blood of many innocent people on its hands.

Türkiye, Sweden and Finland signed a trilateral memorandum of understanding that obliges the two Nordic states to cooperate with Türkiye against the terrorist organizations at a NATO summit in Madrid in June.

Sweden and Finland promised to take stricter measures to stop the activities of the terror organizations on their soil and extradite terror suspects demanded by Türkiye.

Turkish President Recep Tayyip Erdoğan earlier had said Sweden promised to extradite 73 terrorists to Türkiye.