The Swedish government must act differently if it wants to secure Turkey’s support for its NATO bid, Hungary’s Foreign Minister Peter Szijjarto said on Tuesday, in reference to the Qur’an burning that took place last weekend.
After a meeting with his Turkish counterpart Mevlut Cavusoglu on Tuesday, Hungary’s Foreign Minister Szijjarto said the burning of the Quran outside the Turkish embassy in Stockholm was “unacceptable”.
“To claim that burning a holy book is part of freedom of expression is sheer stupidity,” Szijjarto said.
Along with Turkey, Hungary is the only NATO country that has not yet accepted Sweden’s and Finland’s membership applications. According to Szijjarto, Hungary has a clear intention to say yes, but will not try to influence Turkey in its decision.
During the same press conference, Turkey’s foreign minister confirmed that Ankara would not approve Sweden’s NATO application at this time.
“If Sweden fulfils its obligations, then we can sit down and talk. But right now, it is not possible for us to say yes to Sweden’s NATO application,” Cavusoglu said.
Turkey has opposed Sweden’s NATO bid since its official application last year, imposing demands including the extradition of Kurdish opponents living in Sweden that Ankara deems terrorists. So far, centre-right Swedish Prime Minister Ulf Kristersson repeatedly refused these conditions despite Turkey’s insistence and adding new names to be deported.
The matter was further complicated on Saturday (21 January) when Danish-Swedish citizen Rasmus Paludan burnt a Qur’an near the Turkish embassy in Stockholm, which led to demonstrations across the Muslim world and stirred anger in Ankara.
Turkey seems now bent on only accepting Finland’s NATO application, whereas Helsinki and Stockholm were supposed to enter the Alliance together. However, Finland stands by Sweden.
“We have underlined to all our future NATO partners, including Hungary and Turkey, that Finnish and Swedish security go together,” Finnish Foreign Minister Pekka Haavisto said on Monday, adding that he “still see(s) the NATO summit in Vilnius in July as an important milestone when I hope that both counties will be accepted as NATO members at the latest.”
(Charles Szumski | EURACTIV.com)
Source: euractiv.com
