Vanhanen and Norlén were supposed to travel to Turkey on Monday evening. The trip was canceled after a doll resembling the Turkish president was hung by its legs outside Stockholm City Hall.
16.1. 16:16 | Updated 16.1. 18:48
Parliamentary speaker Matti Vanhanen and Speaker of the Swedish Parliament Visiting in Helsinki Andreas Norlén met the media in the parliament’s state hall on Monday.
Vanhanen and Norlén were supposed to travel to Turkey on Monday evening, but the trip was canceled after the Turkish president Recep Tayyip Erdoğan a similar doll was hung by its legs outside the Stockholm City Hall.
On Sunday, Erdoğan said, according to Turkish media, that nearly 130 terrorists would have to be handed over to Turkey in order for Turkey to accept the countries’ membership in the military alliance NATO.
Norlén’s according to the purpose of the trip to Turkey was to develop parliamentary contacts between the countries. He did not assess what kind of effects the events of the last few days might have on Finland’s and Sweden’s NATO process.
Vanhanen stated that there is freedom of expression in Finland and Sweden.
“Expressions cannot be controlled in advance, and states do not do that. This is one of the starting points on which Finland and Sweden operate,” Vanhanen said.
Based on his answer, Norlén seemed to take a more judgmental view of the case. He described seeing the doll as “unpleasant”, and according to him the expression indicated a threat.
Read more: The Prime Minister’s comments on Erdoğan’s “fake execution” went too far, says an expert
“In a democracy, it must be possible to talk about any social issues. But if you act in a way that suggests a threat to a political actor, I think that has no place in a democratic society,” said Norlén.
Swedish Foreign Minister Tobias Billström on the other hand, previously described the act as a “fake act”.
“No country would have accepted such open-air mock executions of democratically elected leaders,” he said.
Speaker Norlén said, however, that he does not believe that the case will have long-term effects on the relationship between Sweden and Turkey.
Also Vanhanen stated that the purpose of the trip to Turkey was not to hold negotiations, but to have a discussion between the parliaments.
“And for our part, it assures that, as Turkey’s future allies, we are also interested in and concerned about the security challenges that Turkey has. As a NATO member, we expect Turkey’s support, and accordingly we are committed to supporting Turkey in all matters that challenge Turkey’s security.”
According to Vanhanen, there should not have been a “direct temporal connection” between the presidents’ trip and Turkey’s ratification. The Turkish parliament will be on election break in March.
“We still have a time window this February. I’m not going to estimate what the probability of ratification is in this time window.”
According to Vanhanen, the current uncertain situation regarding Finland’s and Sweden’s NATO membership does not serve NATO’s interests.
“It mostly works for Russia. The more uncertainty there is in an important question, the more it opens up different possibilities.”
Both Vanhanen and Norlén said that there have been discussions about a new visit to Turkey, but no decision has been made on the matter.
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