Religious matters were not part of the trilateral Nordic- Turkey memorandum on NATO accession, Sweden’s Foreign Minister Tobias Billström said on Wednesday in response to threats that Turkey would block Sweden’s bid to join the transatlantic alliance after an anti-Islam protester was given a permit to burn a Quran near the Turkish embassy in Stockholm.
“Religion is not part of the agreement… We will not compromise on freedom of expression, it is very clear what is required for Sweden to become a member of NATO and that is that we meet the requirements in the trilateral memorandum. And we will do that within the framework set by our constitution, our legislation and principles of the rule of law,” Billström told reporters.
Last year, Finland and Sweden made a trilateral agreement with Turkey to bend to a list of demands, including the extradition of Kurdish groups from the two Scandinavian countries, in return for Turkey’s backing required to secure NATO membership, amidst security concerns due to Russia’s invasion of Ukraine.
The trilateral talks became heated in early January, after a Kurdish group in Stockholm protested Sweden’s compliance with the obligations it had made to Turkey by hanging a mannequin of the Turkish president Erdoğan, comparing it to the execution of Italian dictator Benito Mussolini.
Tensions between Turkey and Sweden rose even more a week later when a far-right Islamophobic activist secured a permit to burn a copy of Islam’s holy book, the Quran, in an protest outside the Turkish Embassy in the Swedish capital.
In order to resume talks, Foreign Minister Billström called for calm and argued that Erdoğan’s response to the dispute was affected by the on-going presidential election process in Turkey.
“In election campaigns, many things are said and many things seem to be said, that is always the case. [The Turkish president’s] statements must be seen in this light,” said Billström.
