The news of the severe earthquake in Turkey was barely on the ticker on Monday morning when the Swedish government announced the first financial support and the dispatch of rescue teams and aids. A second aid package was put together on Tuesday, and the government promised to immediately transfer 30 million crowns (around 3.2 million euros). Prime Minister Ulf Kristersson tweeted his deepest condolences and stressed that as a “partner of Turkey” he was ready to provide further assistance. The Swedish newspapers then eagerly discussed whether this generous aid might have a positive impact on the faltering NATO accession – which probably says more about current Swedish fears than about the actual status of the negotiations.
Turkish President Recep Tayyip Erdoğan threatened last week that he would only sign Finland’s NATO proposal. Sweden and Finland jointly applied for membership last spring. In early January, an Erdogan doll was hung up by its feet at a demonstration in Stockholm. Shortly thereafter, the Swedish-Danish right-wing extremist Rasmus Paludan burned a Koran in front of the Turkish embassy. As a result, Swedish flags were burned in the Muslim world. The Swedish embassy in Ankara had to close temporarily, and Erdoğan said Sweden could no longer count on Turkish support in the NATO process.
The Swedish police have banned another burning of the Koran
This Thursday, a small Swedish group called Apallarkerna wanted to burn another Koran in front of the Turkish embassy, but this time it was forbidden. The group writes that on the one hand they want to defend freedom of expression, on the other hand they are against Swedish NATO membership and hope to make the accession process even more difficult by burning them. The Swedish police explained the ban by saying that the action could “cause serious disruption to national security”. Since Paludan’s burning of the Koran, there has been a “changed threat to Sweden”.
The The United States and Great Britain had recently warned of retaliatory strikes against Sweden. The US Embassy in Stockholm urges Americans in Swedento avoid public gatherings. Swedish security police Säpo added that a fake news campaign is fueling the situation: rumors have been circulating on social media for some time that Swedish social services are deliberately taking children away from Muslim families. After the anti-Erdoğan protests and Paludan’s burning of the Koran, threats against social service workers increased so massively that the government countered the rumor in a press conference of its own: “The social services and the Swedish state do not kidnap children,” said Prime Minister Ulf Kristersson.
There was also an Erdoğan provocation in Finland
As far as the Swedish-Finnish accession process is concerned, it was noticeable that US Secretary of State Anthony Blinken and NATO Secretary General Jens Stoltenberg did not make any clear statements at a joint press conference on Wednesday about the joint admission of Sweden and Finland to the defense alliance. Both dodged questions from several Swedish journalists as to whether Finland could also be included on its own.
Something that has been lost in the events so far: PKK sympathizers also carried an Erdoğan doll at a demonstration in Finland, but not in the capital Helsinki, but in Oulu in northern Finland. At the demonstration on Monday, the initiators of the demonstration accused Erdoğan of genocide and crimes against humanity, among other things, and called for the release of PKK leader Abdullah Öcalan, who has been imprisoned since 1999. The Turkish President’s doll was inscribed with the word “terrorist”. So far there have been no reactions from Turkey. Instead, the American news agency Bloomberg wrote that Turkey was about to ratify the Finnish application.