Foreign Minister calls it “hate crime”
Hanging Erdogan doll causes bad air in Sweden
In Stockholm, the Kurds hung an Erdogan doll by its feet. Ankara has summoned the Swedish ambassador
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This Erdogan doll is causing a stir in Sweden.
A protest with an Erdogan doll hung by its feet in central Stockholm has sparked new tensions between Turkey and Sweden. In response, the Turkish government summoned the Swedish ambassador and canceled a planned visit by the Swedish parliament speaker Andreas Norlén to Ankara. Sweden’s path to NATO, which Turkey has been blocking for months, has now gained another hurdle.
In response to the Russian war of aggression against Ukraine, Sweden and Finland applied for NATO membership in May 2022. The process is currently still stuck due to a blockade by Turkey. Ankara accuses Sweden in particular of not taking decisive action against people and groups that Ankara calls “terrorist”. Ankara repeatedly makes the same accusations against Germany and France, both of which are NATO partners.
Doll to simulate proximity to Mussolini corpse
«The PKK and YPG are laying mines on Sweden’s path to NATO membership. It is now up to Sweden to clear these mines or knowingly step on them, »said Turkish Foreign Minister Mevlut Cavusoglu on Thursday evening about the controversial action in Stockholm. He blamed supporters of the banned Kurdish Workers’ Party PKK and the Syrian Kurdish militia YPG, which Ankara considers an offshoot of the PKK, for the incident and called it “racist” and a “hate crime” on Friday.
The protest action had taken place within sight of Stockholm City Hall. Photos on social media showed that a doll resembling President Recep Tayyip Erdogan (68) was hung by the feet there. Behind it were apparently activists from a Swedish organization that describes itself as “a network for solidarity and exchange with the revolutionary movement throughout Kurdistan”. They wanted to put Erdogan close to the fascist Italian dictator Benito Mussolini, whose body had been hung upside down in Milan in 1945. (SDA/chs)