How is Sweden's Trial Against Terrorism Going?

Do Sweden and Turkey's destinies intersect only today with NATO membership and terrorism against Turkey? Certainly not. Sweden has an important place in both Turkish history and the history of the Ottoman Empire. The 12th Karl Gustav, commonly known as "Demirbaş Şarl", the anchor of the Ottoman Empire, declared war against Russia over Ukraine in 1707, but on July 8, 1709, the Swedish army, which was trying to take the Poltava fortress, suffered a heavy defeat against the Russian army commanded by Peter the Great.  After this defeat, King Karl II of Sweden took refuge in Ottoman lands with two thousand soldiers.  The King of Sweden stayed in the city of Bender in Moldova for 5 years and all his expenses were covered by the Ottoman Empire. (1) 

Initially announcing that he would stay for only five days, Karl II's stay in the Ottoman lands lasted for five years. The Ottoman finances had a problem as to which item of the budget the expenses of the Swedish king, who was hosted by "Devlet-i Âli", should be paid from, and when it was finally decided that these expenses should be paid from the "fixtures" item in the budget, the king was nicknamed "Demirbaş Şarl". After Karl 12th lost his army, he became a political refugee, or rather a "king in exile". Turkey has always been a haven for political refugees and asylum seekers. Turks have shown this hospitality to all nations without discrimination in almost every era. During the Swedish king's stay, which started in Bandar, unpleasant events also took place. 

When the remnants of the Swedish army, which had scattered across the Ukrainian steppes after the Poltava defeat, flocked to Bandar during the six months following the war, the Swedes surrounding Karl II, who had initially camped just outside Bandar with 2,000 soldiers, reached 10,000. It became clear that this forced visit was not so "temporary"; the settlement that "Iron Crown Prince Charlemagne" established just outside Bandar under his own name, Karlstad, became increasingly crowded over time. Sultan Ahmet III, as a gesture to the king, bought Swedish women and children captured by the Russians and sold as slaves in the markets, freed them and sent them to the region. 

Now can you sit down, put your hands under your neck and look at this kindness, is that all? Protection was also taken to the highest level. Fortifications and fortifications were built around the king's camp in Karlstad, and a tunnel was dug from his home to his office on the coast. The prolonged stay of the Swedish king, his establishment of a "state within a state" and his constant provocation of the Russians put the Ottomans in a difficult situation, while the Swedish community's serious debt to the tradesmen of Bender made the atmosphere extremely tense. As a result, the "angry mob" rose up against the Swedish king, joined by the janissaries waiting outside the city, and the Swedes were put in their place. This "battle of the city", in which Demirbaş Charlemagne was seriously wounded, is mentioned in Swedish history under the name "Kalabaliken-i Bender". The Ottoman government, which took control of the situation, first kept Karl II under house arrest in Dimetoka and then brought him to Istanbul. (2) 

During his stay in Istanbul, he became a diplomatic problem between the Ottomans and the Russians and constantly provoked the Ottoman state against the Russians. In the end, it can be said that the Battle of Prut, which resulted in the defeat of Russian Tsar Peter the Great by Baltacı Mehmed Pasha in 1711, was fought with his encouragement. This result strengthened the hand of Sweden. 

Five years later, after the Russian defeat at the Battle of Prut, the king decided to return to his country and signed a promissory note for the expenses during his stay. Although a group of Ottoman soldiers came to Sweden with the King to collect the promissory note, the soldiers could not return due to the conditions of the time, and the Ottoman soldiers settled in the town of "Askersund" near the city of Örebro and had to continue their lives there. To this day, neither the Ottoman Empire nor the Republic of Turkey, the successor of the Ottoman Empire, has collected the money for the promissory note signed. Sweden has been lying on this money and the Ottoman Empire has been drinking cold water. 

Let's talk about the contributions of Ottoman life to Swedish life. First of all, during his stay in Ottoman lands, King Karl became a coffee drinker and brought Turkish coffee and stuffed cabbage with him when he returned to Sweden. This was the first time the Swedes, who were living a stagnant life, were introduced to coffee and from that day on coffee became an indispensable drink in Sweden. In addition, stuffed cabbage has become one of the constant dishes of Swedish cuisine, thanks to Iron Crown Prince Charlemagne.  As in other Slavic languages, the words "crowd, mansion, yogurt and dolma" passed from Turkish into Swedish with King Karl the 12th and are still used today. (1)

The defeat of Charlemagne at Poltava in 1709 had one important benefit for Turkish History. The discovery and reading of the Orkhon Inscriptions, which destroyed the assumption that the Turks were a barbaric nation until then, revealed the civilized character of the Turks. Swedish officer Strahlenberg, who was captured in the Battle of Poltava, was exiled to Siberia by the Russians. Philipp Johan von Tabbert (Strahlenberg), who stayed in exile for 13 years and guided Messerschmidt and examined the places where he traveled freely, returned to his homeland in 1722 and published some of them in 1730, mentioning the Yenisei inscriptions. It was Strahlenberg who paved the way for the Orkhon inscriptions and drew the attention of the scientific world on this subject. The discovery of the Orkhon monuments is one of the greatest discoveries of humanity. (2) 

Finally, the great Danish scholar Vilhelm Thomsen succeeded in deciphering the Orkhon script in 1893, and in 1897 he read all the inscriptions and thus the Turkish nation was crowned as a civilized nation with a script. (2) 

However, since then, Turkey and Sweden have once again crossed paths today. So much so that the two countries have become synonymous with NATO and terrorism. After Russia's invasion of Ukraine, Sweden and Finland abandoned their long-standing policy of non-alignment and applied to join the Alliance. Ukraine has played a major role in Turkey's relations with these two countries from past to present. However, Turkey has historically accused Sweden and Finland's membership applications, especially Stockholm, of "harboring terrorists". In fact, this is a very clear statement. Countries like Sweden in Europe have preferred to work with the PKK instead of cooperating with Turkey, and have continued to increase their support. 

It can now be said without exaggeration that organizations like PeKaKa and FETÖ owe their existence to Turkey's allies. PeKaKa not only uses these countries as bases, but also benefits greatly from the support given to front companies and civil society. On top of that, they are also recruiting militants for Qandil and the Syrian PeKaKa. In the EU State of Terrorism Reports of the European Police Organization (EUROPOL), the activities of PeKaKa, which is recognized as a terrorist organization, are highlighted in detail, ranging from extortion to drug and human trafficking, and it is included in the report that PeKaKa uses Europe as a base for supplying weapons and logistics. With the initiatives of NATO Secretary General Jens Stoltenberg, who knows this situation best, Turkey, Sweden and Finland signed a trilateral protocol in Madrid on June 29, 2022, paving the way for the two countries to be invited to join the alliance. 

According to the tripartite protocol, Sweden and Finland pledged to "not allow terrorist activities against Turkey, not to allow terrorist groups to operate on their territory, and to cooperate more closely with Ankara in the fight against terrorism in general". (3) The 349-seat Swedish Parliament passed by 278 votes a constitutional amendment that would make it possible to pass stricter 'anti-terrorism' laws, one of Turkey's main demands for Stockholm to approve NATO membership. This was welcomed in Ankara. Soon after, however, incidents erupted, especially in Sweden, a country that has been harboring terrorism for decades, where sympathizers of PeKaKa targeted President Recep Tayyip Erdoğan by hanging a model of him during an illegal demonstration, and then Rasmus Paludan, the leader of Sweden's Denmark-based racist Strict Direction Party (Stram Kurs), known for its far-right views, burned a Koran near the Turkish Embassy in Stockholm. Now, can you explain Sweden's enabling of all this with freedom of expression? This is a clear hate crime and the Swedish government has clearly facilitated this crime.  As a result of this tense situation, the Swedish Defense Minister Pal Jonson's visit to Turkey on January 27, 2023 was canceled in a statement released after the Ukraine Defense Contact Group Meeting in Germany. (4) Now, after all this, the fact that Turkey has approved the NATO Membership of Sweden, which is the President-in-Office of the European Union for 6 months as of January 1, 2023, without vetoing or suspending it, has created a situation that the Turkish people cannot digest.

Let us not forget that this situation is not unique to today, it is an issue that has been developing since the Ottoman Empire. The starting point was the appointment of Mehmet Şerif Pasha, one of the founders of the Kurdish Teâvün (Solidarity) and Terakkî (Progress) Society, who married the sister of Grand Vizier Said Halim Pasha, to the post of Ferik and was appointed as the middle ambassador to Stockholm in 1898. It was during his time that the separatist movement began to gain a foothold in Sweden. Sharif Pasha, whose French nickname "Beau Şerif" (Beautiful Şerif) was transformed into "empty man" by Süleyman Nazif, even offered his services to the British to help them win over the Kurds in Mesopotamia (Al Jazeera) during the First World War.  Due to the 1971 and 1980 military coups and the anti-democratic situation in Sweden, it was easy enough to say 'I am a member of the Communist Party' or 'I am wanted'. According to unofficial statistics, 6000 people came to Sweden between 1971 and 1984. It should be noted that the number of books on Kurds published in Sweden or translated into Kurdish is enormous. Suffice it to say here that only one Kurdish author has written 32 books in Swedish. (5) Especially in Sweden, anti-Turkey groups have formed a broad base. 

Rasmus Paludan, the Danish-born author of the Koran burning that galvanized the 1.5 billion-strong Islamic world, is a lawyer and leader of the racist Stram Kurs (Stram Kurs), a small right-wing party that failed to enter parliament. In the 2019 elections, his party failed to pass the electoral threshold, and later, when it was proven that the party had been corrupt in its founding, the party disbanded and was replaced by the organization "No to Islam in Denmark". Paludan has carried out many similar actions in Denmark and has recently started to move towards Sweden, because the Danish people are uncomfortable with the tension and the police involvement. It is noteworthy that he did his action alone in front of only one cameraman. Paludan announces his actions on social media in advance where he will be on what day and where he will be, just like Charlie Hepdo in France, taking advantage of the hypersensitivities of the Islamic community. As a result, he achieved his goal, created a mess and fled the protest site. As a result, he turned the protest site into a war zone, pitting an angry community against the security forces who intervened.  

After all this, I would like to say that the Swedish administration is only content with saying that it is committed to the commitments in the Trilateral Covenant and is unable to take any action against what is being done against Turkey in the context of terrorism. However, saying that one is committed to the commitments in the Tripartite Covenant and fulfilling these commitments are two different initiatives. What Sweden needs to do, dear readers, is to put forward a series of actions that go beyond rhetoric and include concrete and effective steps, especially in the fight against terrorism, in line with its commitments in the Trilateral Covenant. 

Footnotes

(1)  Atila Altuntaş, “İsveç'in efsane kralı Türk gelenekleriyle anıldı”, Anadolu Ajansı, 30.11.2017; https://www.aa.com.tr/tr/dunya/isvecin-efsane-krali-turk-gelenekleriyle-anildi/986678/ Erişim Tarihi 22.01.2023/

(2) Muharrem Ergin, Orhun Abideleri, İstanbul, 2003, s.9; https://acikders.ankara.edu.tr/pluginfile.php/72194/mod_resource/content/1/ORHUN-%C3%82B%C4%B0DELER%C4%B0.pdf /Erişim Tarihi 22.01.2023/

(3) BBC Türkçe Servisi, İsveç ve Finlandiya, NATO’ya katılım için Türkiye’yi ikna edebilecek mi?1 Ekim 2022; https://www.bbc.com/turkce/articles/crgxy0rejw3o/Erişim Tarihi 22.01.2023/

(4) https://bianet.org/bianet/dunya/273138-bakan-akar-isvec-savunma-bakaninin-turkiye-ziyaretini-iptal-etti/ Erişim Tarihi 22.01.2023/

(5) Şoreş Reşî,  İsveç’te Kürt yayın ve çeviri dünyasından bir görünüm ,PKAN , 6 Temmuz 2019; https://www.kurdenanatolien.com/isvecte-kurt-yayin-ve-ceviri-dunyasindan-bir-gorunum/Erişim Tarihi 15.05.2022/