Turkish President Recep Tayyip Erdoğan has demanded the extradition of a Turkish journalist in exile in Sweden whom he called a “terrorist,” during a meeting with the country’s prime minister in Ankara, the state-run Anadolu news agency reported.
Swedish Prime Minister Ulf Kristersson was in Ankara on Tuesday, hoping to persuade Turkey to drop its opposition to Sweden joining the NATO military alliance, with Ankara accusing Stockholm and Helsinki of harboring political dissidents who are labelled as “terrorists” by Turkey.
Among them is journalist Bülent Keneş, an academic and the former editor-in-chief of the now-closed English language Today’s Zaman daily, also an outspoken critic of Erdoğan’s government.
Erdoğan said just as Sweden wants to join NATO for its security, Turkey wants Sweden to take steps to help Turkey eliminate its concerns about its security.
“Issues such as the number of the terrorists who will be extradited to Turkey, 30 or 100, are things open to discussion. The deportation of the terrorist named Bülent Keneş is of importance to us,” Erdoğan said at a news conference with Kristersson.
NATO member Turkey is threatening to freeze Sweden and Finland’s attempts to join NATO unless they extradite dozens of people Ankara accuses of “terrorism” including Keneş.
Kristersson described his meeting with Erdoğan as “very productive”.
“Sweden will live up to all the obligations made to Turkey in countering the terrorist threat,” he said.
The Swedish parliament on Tuesday said it would vote next week on a constitutional amendment that would make it possible to strengthen anti-terror laws, a key demand from Turkey.
The amendment will make it possible to introduce new laws to “limit freedom of association of groups involved in terrorism,” the parliament said in a statement, adding that the vote was scheduled for Nov. 16.
A non-binding deal Sweden and fellow NATO aspirant Finland signed with Turkey in June commits them to “expeditiously and thoroughly” examine Ankara’s requests for suspects linked to the Gülen movement and the outlawed Kurdistan Workers’ Party (PKK), which is recognized as a terrorist organization by Turkey and much of the international community.
Keneş is accused by the Turkish government of links to the Gülen movement, labelled by the Turkish government as the mastermind of a failed coup in 2016 and a “terrorist organization.” The movement strongly denies any involvement in the failed putsch or terrorist activity.
Today’s Zaman, a sister newspaper to Turkey’s best-selling newspaper Zaman, was closed down by the government in the aftermath of the coup attempt in addition to dozens of other media organizations due to their links to the movement.
Both Swedish and Finnish government officials said they will continue to respect national and international laws regarding Turkey’s extradition requests and that the decision for extraditions will be up to independent authorities and the courts.
Keneş has catapulted himself to the top of Ankara’s wanted list through his outspoken criticism of President Erdoğan. He received prison sentences of 21 months and two years, seven months in 2015 and 2016, respectively, for insulting the president in a series of tweets that the journalist said were merely the expression of a critical opinion.
Keneş currently faces three aggravated life sentences plus 15 years in prison in Turkey over one of his articles.
After the failed coup in Turkey in 2016, Keneş went into hiding for several weeks and fled the country due to arrest warrants and a travel ban. He has been living in Stockholm for the last six years.
In 2020 he wrote a book titled “A Genocide in the Making? Erdoğan Regime’s Crackdown on the Gülen Movement,” which he says attempts to sound the alarm to the international community about developments in Turkey that are inching closer to a full-fledged genocide against the Gülen movement.
Keneş was also targeted last month by the pro-Turkish-government Sabah newspaper, which revealed his home address and secretly taken photos in Stockholm.