The new law, which began work on it in 2017 after a truck plowed into a crowd in Stockholm killing five people, will criminalize “participation in a terrorist organization,” the government said.
THE Swedish government will send an anti-terrorism bill to parliament today, hoping to persuade Turkey to lift its objections to the Nordic country joining the NATO.
The new law, work on which began in 2017 after a truck plowed into a crowd in Stockholm killing five people, will criminalize “membership in a terrorist organization“, the government said.
Sweden and Finland applied last year to join NATO amid heightened security concerns following Russia’s invasion of Ukraine, but faced unexpected objections from Turkey, which says Stockholm harbors what Ankara calls members of terrorist organizations.
Turkey has recently indicated that it will only approve Finland’s request to join NATO.
A representative of the Swedish Minister of Justice Gunnar Stromer said the government will present its bill to parliament today after formally approving it earlier today.
“Fighting terrorism is a central part of the tripartite agreementStromer wrote in an article in the Dagens Nyheter newspaper, referring to a tripartite memorandum on steps towards Turkish ratification signed last year by Turkey, Sweden and Finland.
“With the new legislation the government is now introducing, Sweden will have a powerful tool for prosecuting people who support terrorism“, he added.
Turkey and Hungary are the only NATO member states that have not ratified the requests of Sweden and Finland to join the Alliance. Other member states hope the Nordic countries will join the Alliance at the upcoming NATO summit in July.
Ankara wants Helsinki and Stockholm in particular to take a harder line against the Kurdistan Workers’ Party (PKK), which is considered a terrorist organization by Turkey and its Western allies, including Sweden and Finland, and another group that Ankara blames the 2016 coup attempt.
The Turkish government in January broke off talks on the two Nordic countries’ NATO bids after a Danish-Swedish politician burned a copy of the Koran near the Turkish embassy in Stockholm.
Turkey, Sweden and Finland were due to resume tripartite talks on their requests to join the North Atlantic Treaty Organization at a meeting today in Brussels at the level of state officials.
A date has yet to be set for the bill to be passed by Swedish MPs.
The government plans to bring the law into force in June. In January, a constitutional amendment that was a prerequisite for the proposed law came into force.
Source :Skai
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