Comedian Kadir Meral made a few minutes of jokes about the Turkish president in the satirical program ‘Svenska Nyheter’ on Friday. In addition, co-host Kristoffer Ahonen Appelquist called Erdogan a “fool”.
The friction over the Swedish TV program coincides with a consultation between Swedish and Turkish delegations in Ankara about the extradition of terror suspects from Sweden to Turkey. Interviews will take place on Wednesday and Thursday. They are important for Stockholm, because Sweden wants to join NATO.
Turkey is a veteran of the North Atlantic Treaty Organization (NATO) and during the Cold War was a pillar of this treaty organization that was supposed to keep the Soviet Union out. As a NATO member, Turkey must agree to Swedish membership. This is still not complete, although an agreement has already been reached in NATO.
Swedish Prime Minister Magdalena Andersson said in a response that “the most important thing is that we stick to the agreements made”.