Turkey Calls on Sweden to Hold Responsible Those Responsible for PKK Flag Projection at Parliament Building

Turkey today called on NATO candidate Sweden to seek criminal responsibility from those responsible for projecting a flag of an outlawed group at the parliament building in Stockholm on the day of the Turkish presidential election runoff, Reuters reported.

A spokesman for the Swedish parliament said several people had projected messages onto the parliament building late Sunday, but added that the content of the messages had not been documented.

Sweden, which applied for NATO membership after Russia’s aggression against Ukraine, is awaiting Turkey’s approval to join.

Footage of the flag of the outlawed Kurdistan Workers’ Party (PKK) being projected onto the Swedish parliament building was shared on Twitter. The footage was shared by the “Rojava Committee” (the name of the Kurdish territories in northern Syria) – an organization close to the PKK. Another image shared on Twitter included the message “Freedom for Öcalan” (imprisoned Turkish PKK leader Abdullah Öcalan).

“We expect the Swedish authorities to investigate this incident, hold the perpetrators accountable and stop the activities on Swedish soil of self-identified members of the PKK, which the EU also recognizes as a terrorist organization,” Fahrettin Altun, director of communications for the Turkish president, said on Twitter.

A spokesman for the Swedish parliament said several people had projected messages onto the parliament building from the opposite pier. According to him, the persons disappeared when the guards of the Riksdag (Parliament of Sweden) arrived.

The incident occurred on the day Turkish President Recep Tayyip Erdogan won a runoff in presidential elections to continue his hardline foreign policy, Reuters notes. Turkey initially opposed Finland’s and Sweden’s bids for NATO membership, but later, in March, approved Finland’s bid. Ankara still opposes Sweden’s bid on the grounds that Stockholm harbors members of terrorist groups and does not consider Turkey’s security concerns.

Joining NATO requires unanimous approval from all member countries.