By Anadolu Agency
Sweden’s Prime Minister Magdalena Andersson has criticized a group of left-wing parliamentarians for posing with rags symbolizing the PKK terror group.
“[This] is extremely inappropriate,” Andersson told the country’s TT news agency, recalling that PKK is a designated terror organization not just in Sweden but in the EU.
Despite the commitments in the memorandum, signed between Türkey, Finland and Sweden regarding full cooperation with Ankara in fighting terrorism, images on social media showed on Tuesday parliamentarians from the Left Party posing with rags of the PKK terror group and its Syrian offshoots YPG and YPJ.
Swedish Foreign Minister Ann Linde also termed the promotion of the terror group “completely unacceptable.”
“The PKK was branded a terrorist organization as early as 1984 by Olof Palme’s government. And with good reason. The PKK has many innocent human lives on its conscience,” she said on Twitter, tagging Justice Minister Morgan Johansson.
Linde called on the Left Party to immediately stop supporting the PKK terror group.
Johansson also warned the Left Party by posting the same statement on Twitter.
Commitments by 2 Nordic countries
Representatives from NATO’s 30 member states signed accession protocols for Finland and Sweden, after formally inviting them to the military alliance at the historic summit in Madrid last week.
The two countries shunned neutrality and applied to join NATO in May, a decision spurred on by Russia’s war on Ukraine.
But Türkey, a longstanding member of the alliance, voiced objections to their membership bids, criticizing the countries for tolerating and even supporting terrorist groups.
Ahead of the summit, Ankara and the two Scandinavian countries signed the memorandum after four-way talks, including NATO in Madrid.
The agreement allows the two Nordic countries to become NATO members but conditioned them to take steps on Türkey’s terrorism concerns and lift an arms embargo on Ankara.
Following the trilateral deal, NATO formally invited Sweden and Finland to join the 30-member military alliance.