Finland has received attention in the Turkish media in recent days. Sweden has been in a tough situation for a long time. In stories, names and facts sometimes get mixed up, but the anger is intense.
12:46•Updated 12:48
President Recep Tayyip Erdoğan pro-regime Turkish media sees a long line of scandals, injustices and cowardly attacks on Turkey when it reports from the world.
In recent days, Finland has also been in the news.
The first subject of shock is the cartoonist Ville Rannan In Iltalehti (you switch to another service) published caricature of President Recep Tayyip Erdoğan.
In the cartoon, the president demands that more people be extradited to Turkey if he is mocked.
Turkish of Yeni Şafak (you will switch to another service) in the short story, President Erdoğan’s face is blurred in the screenshot. The newspaper thinks the cartoon is a cowardly attack on the president.
Another scandal is related to Sweden. Sabah magazine (you will switch to another service) has published a story in which a Finnish diplomat has made “scandalous statements” about Turkey. However, the “diplomat” is the editor-in-chief of Hufvudstadsbladet Tommy Westerlund.
Swedish Dagens Nyheter newspaper (you switch to another service) has interviewed Westerlund, RKP MP Eva Biaudet and a retired diplomat René Nyberg about whether Sweden sympathizes with Turkey too much.
The statement that irritates Turkish newspapers is apparently an interpretation of Nyberg’s assessment, according to which Finland and Sweden should wait in peace, because the countries are strong actors in terms of NATO. Nyberg thinks the situation is now unpleasant.
Wild claims about Sweden
Sweden has been dealing with the Turkish media for a long time.
Media supporting the government gave a lot of space last year for the campaign (you switch to another service)where Swedish social services were allegedly abducting Muslim children.
Now the main message is that Sweden continues to support terrorism and especially the Kurdistan Workers’ Party, the PKK.
According to Turki, those who participated in the demonstrations and last week’s doll seizure in Stockholm are terrorists or supporters of terrorist organizations.
Turkish public radio TRT and some Turkish newspapers (you will switch to another service) recently claimed that the Swedish SEB bank had opened a bank account for PKK “terrorists”.
The source is the right-wing populist online magazine Fria Tider, which had found the news on another website.
As the NATO process drags on, there are sure to be more amazing claims ahead.