The burning of a copy of the Quran, the holy book of Islam, in front of the Turkish Consulate in Stockholm by Rasmus Paludan, the leader of the Danish Hard Line party, amid Swedish security forces’ inertia caused a quiet stir. Due to this provocation, Türkiye-Sweden relations, which had made a progress in terms of the Nordic country’s NATO membership, fell below the initial level.

"You should not bother to come," the government told the Swedish delegation planning a trip to Ankara to convince Türkiye to approve their NATO bid. Furthermore, President Erdoğan clearly stated that "If Sweden cannot respect the religious belief of Muslims, it will not receive any support from us on NATO."

Meanwhile, Sweden, which is responsible for the disgraceful incident, throws the ball out of bounds helplessly and clumsily, as if the act was a mere freedom of expression.

Undoubtedly, freedom of religion, defined in the Universal Declaration of Human Rights, is a right as well as freedom of expression. Therefore, demonizing a minority belief group by burning their holy book cannot be termed as freedom or a right. We do not live in Nazi Germany.

On the contrary, Europe, which knows no bounds in freedom, intervenes even in jokes about the Holocaust, black people, or homosexuals by calling it "hate speech?" Isn't that clearly a double standard?

However, as I said before, this is not our discussion. The primitive act of the ultra-nationalist, far-right extremist and racist Paludan, who preferred the Turkish Consulate in Stockholm to insult Islam despite there being so many Muslim countries, is not the only event hurting the sentiments of Muslims. This is the last of the actions of the groups that have been using Sweden as a base to manipulate the elections in Türkiye for a while. For many terrorist organizations which are the United States apparatus used against Türkiye, their "leashes" are "loosened" in Sweden. In other words, they are all set free in the Nordic country.

The militants of the PKK terrorist organization and its Syrian affiliate YPG, which has been proven by the courts to be responsible for the terrorist acts in which thousands of civilians and soldiers were killed, are burning and tearing the streets of Sweden freely. Members of the Gülenist Terror Group (FETÖ), who attempted a military coup in Türkiye in 2016 and caused the death of nearly 250 people, are also taking refuge in Sweden. There are demonstrations in the country where Turkish flags are burned every day. Swedish authorities have also exaggerated the situation to the extent that they allow demonstrations where the puppets of President Recep Tayyip Erdoğan are hanged.

Cartoon contest

Put your hand on your heart and tell: Is it normal for newspapers to organize a cartoon contest to insult the elected president of Türkiye in Sweden, where you would have trouble finding someone to show you the country’s location on the map if you ask?

The Swedish government should stop making fools of people, lecturing about "tolerance" as if it were strange that Türkiye's rightful response to constant provocations was strange. Instead of finding justification for the operations of useful dark circles that dynamite Ankara-Stockholm relations, Sweden should confront the real problem that threatens the peace and well-being of its electorate.

No, I'm not talking about the populist wave rising inside the country. Since, including racism, this atmosphere that has taken hold of Swedish politics, which is put before the goal of membership to NATO, is due to the fact that the country, like Ukraine, became the secret base of the U.S. outside the pact in the cold war.

It is debatable what NATO membership will bring to Sweden, apart from gaining Russia's hostility... But whatever decisions are taken, it is clear that Stockholm must first get rid of the satellite country position used by the U.S. in its operations.