Turkish president urges Sweden to cut “support” to “terrorist groups”

President turcoRecep Tayyip Erdogan, urged on Saturday to Sweden to “put an end to political and financial support and the delivery of weapons to Kurdish terrorist groups”, after speaking with the Prime Minister of the Nordic country, who presented her candidacy for accession to the OTAN.

Erdogan “expects Sweden to take concrete and serious measures, showing that it shares Turkey’s concerns about the PKK terrorist organization [Partido de los Trabajadores del Kurdistán] and its ramifications in Syria and Iraq,” said a statement published in Ankara after the telephone conversation between the Turkish president and Prime Minister Magdalena Anderson.

Erdogan also asks Sweden to “lift the restrictions” on arms exports decreed against Turkey in October 2019, after the Turkish military incursions in northern Syria and in Iraq against the PKK and its YPG allies, which it was facing together with the United States. United to the jihadist organization Islamic State.

The Turkish president is also scheduled to speak with his Finnish counterpart, who has also submitted an application for NATO membership.

Both Sweden and Finland decided to break with decades of military non-alignment, after the Russian invasion of Ukraine, presenting their demand for NATO membership, but acceptance requires unanimous acceptance by all members of the Atlantic alliance.

And Turkey objects to these demands, considering that these two countries are sanctuaries of the PKK, an organization considered terrorist by Ankara as well as by the United States and the European Union.

Since the beginning of the war in Ukraine, Turkey has also tried to maintain relations with the two belligerents.