By Huseyin Hayatsever
November 16, 20238:32 AM PST
At a NATO meeting in Madrid last year, Turkey struck an agreement with Sweden and Finland in which they would lift arms embargoes and take measures against members of the outlawed Kurdistan Workers' Party (PKK), and the separate so-called Gulen movement that Ankara holds responsible for a 2016 coup attempt.
Last year, Stockholm reversed a ban on exporting military equipment to Turkey, without revealing details of companies or products.
In June, it introduced a new anti-terrorism bill that makes being a member of a terrorist organization illegal, saying that it had upheld its part of the deal.
In recent months, a top Swedish court blocked the extradition of two Turks that Ankara says are Gulenists, while an appeals court upheld the conviction of a man for attempting to finance the PKK, which is also deemed a terrorist group by the European Union and United States.
Separately, in response to criticism in Turkey and other majority Muslim countries, Justice Minister Gunnar Strommer said Sweden was examining whether it could change the law to stop people burning the Muslim holy book the Koran in public.
Finland, for its part, agreed last year to consider granting arms export permits to Turkey on a case-by-case basis. After nearly a year wait, Ankara said Helsinki had won its blessing.
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