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Appallingly, Hard Line Party Head Party Pledges to Burn Qurans Weekly Until Swedish Bid Approved

Appallingly, Hard Line Party Head Party Pledges to Burn Qurans Weekly Until Swedish Bid Approved
folder_openEurope... access_timeone year ago
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By Staff, Agencies

Danish right-wing Hard Line party leader and habitual Quran-burner Rasmus Paludan has promised Ankara to burn copies of Islam's sacred book in front of the Turkish embassy "every Friday" until Sweden is granted permission to access NATO.

Earlier, Ankara interrupted NATO tripartite negotiations with Sweden and Finland; it decried them as as "meaningless," citing Paludan’s protest in Stockholm, during which a copy of the Quran was burned, leaving the nations’ NATO bids hanging in the air.

Paludan, whose fringe party runs on an anti-Islam agenda and a promise to ban all non-Western immigration, reiterated the framing of his actions as an exercise in freedom of speech. In recent years, Paludan has made burning and otherwise defacing copies of the Quran an integral part of his political repertoire.

"I will proclaim that this is Erdogan's fault. Now that he doesn't want to let Sweden into NATO, I have to teach him about freedom of speech until he does. As I see it, Erdogan is a liar. When he says it's someone else's fault, he doesn't know how causality works," Paludan told Swedish media.

Admittedly, he intends to burn three Qurans this Friday in Copenhagen – one outside of the Turkish embassy, one near a mosque and one near the Russian embassy. Unlike in Sweden, Paludan doesn’t need a permit in Denmark, but must notify the authorities 24 hours before carrying out an action.

Paludan also promised to "never in his entire life to burn a Quran in front of the Turkish embassy again" once Sweden is accepted into NATO.

Following a series of provocative moves against Turkey, which included granting permission for the leader of the Danish party to burn a copy of the Quran in front of the Turkish embassy in Stockholm, as well as the pro-Kurdish protest where a doll representing Erdogan was hanged in Stockholm, Swedish diplomatic relations with Ankara have fallen to all-time lows.

On January 26, Turkish Foreign Minister Mevlut Cavusoglu said at a press conference that "under these circumstances, trilateral talks are pointless. What is the essence of the mechanism? To comply with the terms of the memorandum punctually. But the current situation is unlikely to create a healthy atmosphere necessary for negotiations. Sweden has not taken serious steps to fulfill the terms of the memorandum, citing various reasons, like changing laws, and the constitution. Therefore, there is no point in the mechanism now."

On January 23, Turkish President Recep Tayyip Erdogan said "If you allow such actions, then do not be offended, but you will not receive support from us on the issue of joining NATO. The Swedish leadership should not expect our support."

As such, Sweden's bid for NATO membership is facing a dead end as ties have recently grown increasingly strained with Turkey.

Paul Levin, director of Stockholm University's Institute for Turkish Studies, argued that the chances of this changing after Turkey's parliamentary elections due in mid-May are uncertain.

"We can now probably forget Turkish ratification before the elections, which seem to be scheduled for May 14," Levin told AFP, adding that "what happens after that depends in part on who wins."

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