(MENAFN- Hip Hop-24) Swedish Foreign Minister Tobias Bilstrom renewed his country's excuse of "freedom of expression" regarding allowing the burning of a copy of the Holy Qur'an in front of the Turkish embassy in Stockholm recently.
This came Friday in a joint press conference with his Latvian counterpart, Edgar Rinkivics.
Billstrom pointed out that Sweden and Finland concluded a tripartite memorandum with Turkey on their accession to NATO.
He said that there are clear conditions and obligations in the memorandum, and that Sweden will fulfill them, he said.
In response to a question about the impact of the burning of the Holy Qur'an in front of the Turkish embassy in Stockholm on the path of Sweden's accession to NATO, Billstrom said: "I do not want to speculate on this issue."
And he added, "Of course there is freedom of expression in Sweden and this is something that everyone can use, but I would like to confirm that the Swedish government does not support or encourage events such as the burning of holy books in any way."
For his part, the Latvian foreign minister said: "We will try to understand Turkey's concerns correctly and clearly. It is important that this be completed before the NATO summit in July. So we have a little more than 5 months to complete the ratification process (for Sweden's membership)."
On January 21, the leader of the Danish far-right "hard line" party, Rasmus Paludan, burned a copy of the Qur'an near the Turkish embassy in Stockholm, amid tight police protection that prevented anyone from approaching him while he was committing the provocative act.
On a large scale, this abuse caused an uproar in the Muslim world, and Turkey considered it a "provocative act" of "hate crimes" and canceled a visit by Swedish Defense Minister Pal Johnson to Ankara.
On Monday, Turkish President Recep Tayyip Erdogan sent a message to Sweden not to wait for Ankara's support regarding its membership in NATO, as long as it does not respect Islamic beliefs.
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