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Turkish flag in Istanbul (icon image)
Photo: Tolga Ildun / ZUMA Wire / IMAGO
Sweden has sent a man back to Turkey who was sentenced to several years in prison in 2015 for links to the banned »Kurdistan Workers' Party« (PKK).
The Kurd had already been deported on Friday, Migration Minister Maria Malmer Stenegard told SVT on Saturday.
However, the Swedish government played no role in this.
"It's about a deportation case in which a person's application for asylum was rejected," said Stenegard accordingly.
Turkish broadcaster TRT reported that the man was taken to a prison in Istanbul on Saturday.
The official Turkish news agency Anadolu also said that the man had arrived in Istanbul on Friday night and was arrested by the Turkish police shortly afterwards.
He was then brought before a court on Saturday, which ordered his arrest.
According to the report, the man is said to have applied for asylum in Sweden in October 2015.
This was rejected in March 2020, after which the man appealed.
According to SVT, the application was finally rejected in February 2021.
The man was finally found during a traffic check and "taken into custody by the migration authorities".
Another person is said to have been deported together with him.
Foreign Minister Çavuşoğlu calls for "concrete steps"
The deportation comes at a remarkable time: Sweden and Finland want to join NATO in the face of the Russian attack on Ukraine.
To do this, they are dependent on the approval of all other NATO members, including Turkey.
However, this has blocked the admission of the two countries since May.
Turkey has accused Sweden in particular of being a haven for "terrorists" and has called for the extradition of several PKK members.
The governments in Stockholm and Helsinki, on the other hand, deny providing shelter to militants - but have agreed to cooperate with Turkey.
Turkish Foreign Minister Mevlut Çavuşoğlu spoke to his colleagues from Sweden and Finland on the sidelines of a NATO meeting earlier this week.
"The explanations are good, the determination is good, but we need to see concrete steps," Çavuşoğlu had said.
He praised the new Swedish government as "more determined than the previous one".
Lawyer calls extradition 'terrible'
The lawyer for the deported man in Sweden has now criticized his client's extradition.
'It's terrible.
It's not just about him, it's primarily about Swedish democracy and human rights," Abdullah Deveci told Swedish news agency TT.
The PKK has been fighting for more rights for the Kurds in Turkey and against the Turkish state since the mid-1980s.
It has repeatedly been held responsible for bloody attacks in Turkey in the past and is classified as a terrorist organization by the government in Ankara and most western countries, including the USA and the EU.
kko/AFP/Reuters