No Kurds with Swedish citizenship will be extradited, Sweden's PM says
Swedish PM Magdalena Andersson has stated that no Kurds with Swedish citizenship will be extradited, upon Turkey's previous extradition requests for people it considers "terrorists."
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Sweden's Prime Minister Magdalena Andersson has said that “We will continue to defend the rights of the Kurds. No Kurds with Swedish citizenship will be extradited to Turkey.”
Answering the questions of the Kurdish news outlet Rudaw’s questions before the upcoming general elections that will be held on Sept. 11, Andersson said: “As long as I am the Prime Minister of Sweden, we will always defend the rights of the Kurds. I think it is very important to state clearly here that, despite the agreement we made with Turkey, no Kurds with Swedish citizenship will be extradited to Turkey.”
“According to Swedish law, anyone who does not commit a terrorist act cannot be deported, so the life of anyone who does not commit a terrorist act according to Swedish law is fully protected,” she added.
Finland and Sweden applied for membership of the defence alliance in response to Russia's invasion of Ukraine, but were met with opposition from Turkey, which accused the Nordic countries of supporting groups it deems terrorists.
The three countries signed an accord at the NATO summit in Madrid in June to lift Ankara's veto in exchange for pledges on counter-terrorism and arms exports. Turkey has said it will closely monitor the implementation of the accord to ratify the Nordic countries’ membership bids.
The candidate countries pledged not to support the PKK and YPG groups or the network of U.S.-based cleric Fethullah Gülen.
Ankara says the Gülen network staged a 2016 coup attempt and labels it a terrorist organization with the acronym FETÖ.