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Hundreds of pro-Kurdish protestors in Stockholm rallied on Saturday to protest against Swedish compliance with the demands of Turkish President Recep Tayyip Erdoğan in return for Turkey’s approval of the Nordic country’s NATO accession.
The demonstrators who gathered in the Swedish capital demanded the cancellation of the trilateral memorandum between Turkey, Sweden and Finland signed at the NATO summit in the Spanish capital Madrid on 28 June.
According to the memorandum, Sweden agreed to certain demands from the Turkish government, including the prosecution and extradition of Kurdish activists, in exchange for Turkey’s approval of the Nordic country’s accession to NATO .
Kurdish activists and rights groups are objecting to Sweden’s compliance with the obligations it has made to Turkey.
A Swedish solidarity committee for Rojava, known as the Rojava Committee of Sweden, recent publishers of a video comparing Erdoğan to the Italian dictator Benito Mussolini, who was hung upside down after his execution towards the end of World War II, were among the more than 500 people who marched to Medborgarplatsen on Södermalm on Saturday, according to TT news agency.
After the video showing a mannequin of Turkish President Recep Tayyip Erdoğan hanging from a rope outside the city hall in Stockholm went viral, Turkey’s Foreign Affairs Ministry summoned Sweden’s ambassador to Turkey.
The Turkish Ministry of Foreign Affairs issued a statement on Saturday condemning Sweden’s permission for the peaceful pro-Kurdish rally, citing the trilateral memorandum.
Saturday’s pro-Kurdish rally coincided with a far-right anti-Islam demonstration outside Turkey’s embassy in Stockholm, which increased still more the diplomatic tension in relations between Sweden and Turkey.
