Sweden announced on Thursday that it would extradite a Turkish citizen demanded by Ankara, but rejected another extradition request, as Turkey stresses that granting deportation requests is a prerequisite for ratifying the Scandinavian country's accession to the North Atlantic Treaty Organization (NATO).
Sweden's justice ministry said it had agreed to extradite Omer Altun, a 29-year-old Turkish citizen who was sentenced by a Turkish court last year to 15 years in prison on charges "equivalent to a charge of fraud in Sweden", but only accepted extradition on the condition that Altun be given a new trial upon his return to Turkey.
"The government shares the Supreme Court's view that nothing stands in the way of extraditing Omer Altun to Turkey," the justice ministry said.
But the government rejected another request for the extradition of Muhammad Zakir Krayel, a 51-year-old Swedish man whom Ankara suspects of being a member of an "armed terrorist organization", according to the Swedish Ministry of Justice. The ministry explained that under the law "a Swedish citizen cannot be extradited."
Sweden extradited at least two Turkish nationals to Ankara last year and rejected several other requests, including a request to extradite the former editor of the Zaman daily, whom Turkey accuses of involvement in the 2016 coup attempt.
On June 28, Turkey, Sweden and Finland signed a tripartite memorandum of understanding on the accession of the latter two countries to NATO, after pledging to respond to Ankara's demands on cooperation in the fight against terrorism.
Turkey calls on Sweden to cooperate and take concrete steps in the issue of handing over wanted terrorists to Ankara, instead of settling for "sweet talk," according to a statement by Turkish Foreign Minister Mevlut Cavusoglu last December.