Last autumn, the satirical program Svenska nyheter broadcast a feature in which the Swedish-Kurdish comedian Kadir Meral joked about Turkish President Recep Tayyip Erdogan in Kurdish for ten minutes.
The feature got the Swedish ambassador to Turkey called to the Turkish Foreign Ministry, and the tone between Turkey and Sweden has hardly improved since then.
Since the feature was shown on television, the relationship has also soured due to the Erdogan doll found hanging at Stockholm City Hall and Koran burnings.
At the same time, Sweden remains dependent on a Turkish yes in order to join the NATO defense alliance.
"You don't really want to upset people"
But what consequences such jokes in Swedish news can have for him personally, or for Sweden's politics, is not something the program's new host Messiah Hallberg thinks about.
- Erdogan's anger is not something I think about when I get up in the morning.
Then you don't really want to upset people.
You want to live well, earn some money, be with your family.
Do you dare to go to Turkey after this?
- It is strange that we are in a time where it is a reasonable question to ask a comedian.
Do you dare joke about this?
What if it has consequences for Sweden's politics?
But if it's Turkey, I'm quite calm because I usually never vacation in Turkey.
Had it been Italy or France or Spain, it might have been more sensitive.
Click on the clip to see Messiah Hallberg's greeting to Erdogan and see more in the Foreign Office: Bad mood on SVT Play at 8 pm and on SVT2 at 10 pm.