Türkiye often complains of failures in international cooperation against terrorism and the extradition issue stands out among those failures. The country, which fights against threats from multiple terrorist groups, expects the same stance from the international community, particularly its allies. Justice Minister Yılmaz Tunç said Friday that few countries approve extradition requests and Sweden is among them. Tunç said Türkiye filed 28 extradition requests to the Nordic country in recent years, and 22 among them were rejected.
Ankara accuses Stockholm of doing too little against terrorist groups, including the PKK and the Gülenist Terror Group (FETÖ). Both groups have a presence in Sweden, which only recently started taking concrete steps for the extradition of people linked to the PKK, while fugitive members of FETÖ still reside in the Nordic country.
Tunç told Demirören News Agency (DHA) that extradition requests for members of FETÖ were coupled with international arrest warrants. “As of July, we have a total of 2,100 extradition requests (sent to the ministry by courts). We have filed requests to 112 countries in 1,387 cases. We made 28 requests to Sweden and 22 of them were rejected. As for Red Notices (for international arrest warrants), none were approved,” he said.
In a rare case, the Supreme Court of Sweden last month permitted Stockholm to return a man supporting the PKK to Türkiye, with extraditions being one of Türkiye’s key demands to ratify Sweden’s accession to NATO.
The ruling means it’s now up to Sweden’s government to decide on whether to extradite the man, the newspaper Aftonbladet reported, adding that he would be the first PKK supporter extradited by Sweden to Türkiye.
In Sweden, the government makes the final decision on extradition requests but cannot grant a request to another state if the Supreme Court rules against it. The 35-year-old man was sentenced in 2014 to four years and seven months in a Turkish prison for transporting a bag containing cannabis. He was released on parole and moved to Sweden but was arrested in August last year following a request from Turkish prosecutors who want him to serve the rest of his sentence.
Last year, Türkiye and the two Nordic countries signed a memorandum to address Ankara’s legitimate security concerns, paving the way for their eventual membership in the alliance. Cracking down on extremist groups and approving the extraditions of dozens of suspects linked to the PKK, as well as a failed 2016 coup attempt by members of the FETÖ who find shelter in the country, have been key demands from Türkiye.
In April, Stockholm agreed to extradite a Turkish citizen sentenced to 15 years in prison in Türkiye and rejected the extradition of another, 51-year-old Mehmet Zakir Karayel, a Swedish citizen of Turkish descent whom Ankara suspects of being a member of an armed terrorist organization. Sweden also took into effect on June 1 a new anti-terrorism law that criminalizes “participation in a terrorist organization,” with Swedish premier Ulf Kristersson and NATO Secretary-General Jens Stoltenberg insisting that the Nordic country had “already fulfilled its obligations” to assuage Ankara’s concerns as per the tripartite deal.
Tunç also spoke about Türkiye's inclusion in the "gray list" by a global watchdog on terror financing in 2021. The Financial Action Task Force (FATF), set up by the G-7 group of advanced economies to protect the global financial system, cited the country’s failure to avert money laundering, in a decision harshly criticized by Ankara, who claimed it was an "undeserved result" given the country's compliance efforts. In 2019, the FATF warned Türkiye about “serious shortcomings,” including the need to improve measures to freeze assets linked to terrorism and weapons of mass destruction proliferation.
The minister said Türkiye has been compliant with 39 out of 40 standards set by the FATF. "They cited several shortcomings in 2020 and we made significant amendments in regulations related to money laundering, financing of terrorism and other issues. We addressed all the shortcomings and this is a fact accepted by the FATF. Türkiye has no shortcomings in terms of regulations but they say putting them into practice had issues. But through recent operations (by security forces), we made major progress on this issue. Our ministry has good coordination with the Interior Ministry and the Ministry of Treasury and Finance in this field. We are resolute," he said.
