MADRID, 21 Ene. (EUROPA PRESS) –
The Turkish Government has announced this Saturday the suspension of the next visit of the Swedish Defense Minister, Pal Jonson, in protest against a possible burning of the Koran that will take place in the Swedish capital, Stockholm, which the Swedish Government has decided to allow in principle .
“At the moment, the visit to Turkey by the Swedish Defense Minister, Pal Jonson, is neither important nor significant. Therefore, we have canceled it,” Turkish Defense Minister Hulusi Akar said of the visit scheduled for the next week, in statements collected by the official Turkish news agency, Anatolia.
At the center of the controversy is once again the Swedish-Danish far-right Rasmus Paludan, who last year already burned a copy of the Koran twice in Sweden “under the pretext of freedom of expression”; act that he intends to repeat this Saturday near the Turkish Embassy in the Swedish capital.
Paludan’s acts are usually responded to with anti-fascist rallies that in mid-April ended with serious riots with the Police.
This time it happens that this controversy takes place in the midst of delicate talks between Sweden and Turkey, which has now vetoed the Nordic country’s access to NATO on the understanding that it shelters members of the Kurdistan Workers’ Party, an organization declared by Ankara as a terrorist group and with which it is at war right now in Syria and Iraq.
For the moment, Turkey has already summoned the Swedish ambassador to the country to communicate its dissatisfaction with the decision of the Swedish authorities not to prevent the act of Paludan.
In the call, Turkish foreign sources explained to the TRT channel, “the Swedish ambassador was made aware that Turkey strongly condemns an act of provocation that is clearly a hate crime.”
“Sweden’s attitude is unacceptable. We hope that the act will not be allowed and that insults to sacred values ??cannot be defended under the guise of ‘democratic rights’,” they added.