Erdogan said Sweden needs to do more to persuade him to drop opposition to its bid to join Nato: he welcomed Sweden’s recent decision to lift the arms embargo introduced in 2019 on Turkey, but the Turkish President also asks the deportation of the asylum seekers his government wants to prosecute for terror-related offences. By the end of November, Erdogan expects Sweden to fully implement the commitments agreed to in a memorandum signed with Finland and Turkey last June: the memorandum commits Sweden and Finland to addressing Turkey’s deportation requests and to create mechanisms to facilitate extradition. Among Turkey’s demands is the return of dozens of people it has accused of terrorism: Erdogan said four people had already been deported to Turkey, despite the Swedish Supreme Court’s rejection of extradition in several of the cases. It is evident that a ‘great victory’ against terrorism would help Erdogan contest next year’s election. The newly elected Swedish conservative prime minister Ulf Kristersson has pledged to distance his government from Kurdish groups fighting Isis in Syria, because Turkey considers them terrorists. All Nato members except for Hungary and Turkey have approved the Nordic countries’ accession: Hungary’s parliament will ratify their entry before the end of 2022.
