The latest Stockholm incident in which an effigy of President Recep Tayyip Erdoğan was strung up by PKK sympathizers is meant to sabotage the country’s NATO accession process, Swedish Prime Minister Ulf Kristersson said Friday.

Kristersson told broadcaster TV4 on Friday that the act was "extremely serious" and he considered it a sabotage against the NATO application. Police said they had no knowledge of the incident until it was over.

Kristersson told TV4 "the risk is there" that the incident could affect the NATO process.

"It is aimed, I would say, as a sabotage against the Swedish NATO application," he said. "It is dangerous for Swedish security to act in this way."

NATO member Türkiye summoned the Swedish ambassador on Thursday over the incident, which comes after months of efforts by Stockholm to win Ankara's backing for the bid it began following Russia's invasion of Ukraine last year.

Ankara has said Sweden needed to take a clearer stance against terrorists, mainly the PKK and the Gülenist Terror Group (FETÖ), which was behind the 2016 coup attempt.

Sweden and Finland signed a three-way agreement with Türkiye last year aimed at overcoming Ankara's objections to their NATO bids, which were made in May and require the approval of all 30 NATO member states.