Turkey has yet to agree to Sweden joining NATO. Ankara accuses Stockholm of a lack of action against “terrorist organizations” – and demands extradition. Now there is movement.
The country’s highest court has approved the first extradition of a PKK supporter to Turkey ahead of new talks in the dispute over Sweden’s NATO membership. This emerges from a decision that the court made available to the German Press Agency.
The relevant Swedish laws did not prevent the man from being extradited to serve out the remainder of his sentence, it said. It is also not incompatible with the European Convention on Human Rights. The government in Stockholm can now decide whether to extradite the 35-year-old. In the course of the ongoing NATO dispute, Turkey has demanded numerous extraditions from Sweden.
Reason for extradition disputed
The man was arrested in the summer of 2022 at the request of the Turkish judiciary in Sweden. Since then he has been in custody. In 2014, he was sentenced to four years and seven months in prison for drug-related crimes in Adana, Turkey. According to the Swedish court order issued last week, he admitted to the drug crimes and was released early on probation for good behavior. In 2018 he came to Sweden from Turkey.
The man considers the real reason for his requested extradition to be that he is a Kurd and has campaigned for the interests of the Kurds. He is therefore a member of the pro-Kurdish party HDP and supports both the Kurdish militia YPG in Syria and the banned Kurdish workers’ party PKK. Turkish President Recep Tayyip Erdogan accuses the HDP of being an extension of the PKK. The HDP rejects this.
Before the impact of the Russian war of aggression against Ukraine, Sweden, like Finland, applied for NATO membership in May 2022. Finland has been a member since the beginning of April, while Sweden still lacks the approval of Turkey and Hungary. Turkey accuses the Scandinavian country of a lack of action against “terrorist organizations” and has repeatedly demanded extraditions.
Sweden’s Foreign Minister Tobias Billstrom plans to meet NATO Secretary General Jens Stoltenberg tomorrow. A new Swedish-Turkish meeting is planned for next week. Sweden hopes to join the alliance by the NATO summit in Vilnius in July.
Source: Stern
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