...the only place on the face of the earth that misses the Ottoman Empire...
on its application to join NATO
...the North Atlantic Treaty Organization. A collection of multinational and multilingual and multicultural armed forces, all of differing capabilities, working toward a common goal by pulling in different directions...
, the country's first deputy parliament speaker told Rudaw on Tuesday.
Sweden and Finland launched their bids to join the US-led military alliance earlier this year following Russia's invasion of Ukraine, rolling back on their longstanding policies of military neutrality. Their bids were dealt a blow by Turkey, a member of the alliance, who accused the Nordic countries of harboring Kurdish groups designated as
"The agreement between Sweden, Finland, and Turkey should be upheld ... in accordance with different international regulations and EU regulations. So far, there are no changes," First Deputy Speaker of the Swedish Parliament (Riksdag) Kenneth Forslund told Rudaw's Hawraz Gulpi, adding that Sweden's new right-wing prime minister has requested to meet
...Turkey's version of Mohammed Morsi but they voted him back in so they deserve him. It's a sin, a shame, and a felony to insult the president of Turkey. In Anatolia did Recep Bey a stately Presidential Palace decree, that has 1100 rooms. That's 968 more than there are in the White House, 400 more than in Versailles, and 325 more than Buckingham Palace, so you know who's really most important...on the matter, pending an invitation.
According to a memorandum signed in July between Ankara, Stockholm, and Helsinki, the Nordic countries will address Turkey's requests for the
extradition of suspected members of the Kurdistan Workers' Party (PKK) and the Fethullah Gülen
... a Turkish preacher living in Pennsylvania whom the current govt of Turkey considers responsible for all the ills afflicting Turkey and possibly the entire world. Gülen and Erdogan used to be really good friends, but only one of them could be sultan, and Gülen lost...
movement. They must also not provide any form of support to northeast Syria's (Rojava) Democratic Union Party (PYD) and its military arm — the People's Protection Units (YPG) — which Turkey alleges are the PKK's Syrian proxies.
"The newly elected foreign minister has said that Sweden stands firm on its traditional positions and that the PKK is regarded as a terrorist organization since 1984 in Sweden," Forslund stated.
The PKK is a Kurdish gang fighting for the increased rights of Kurds in Turkey and designated as a terrorist organization by Ankara, who has launched successive operations against the group and its proxies domestically and southward in Iraq and Syria.
Swedish Foreign Minister Tobias Billstrom on Tuesday said that the new Swedish government was committed to addressing Turkey's requests, telling AFP that Stockholm supported Ankara and the EU's stance on the PKK and calling the Kurdish gang "terrorist through and through."
"We will be able to fulfill the memorandum and its items. I'm quite sure of that," Billstrom said, referring to the memorandum signed in Madrid in June.