The Finnish police are set to investigate a provocative demonstration staged by sympathizers of the PKK terrorist organization in front of the Turkish Embassy in Helsinki last weekend, the embassy revealed Wednesday.
Turkish officials have requested a report from the Helsinki police force over the details of their probe about Sunday’s incident, a statement from the embassy said.
According to local media reports, a group of some 20 PKK terrorist supporters wearing masks gathered near the Turkish Embassy in Helsinki on Feb. 26 and burned a photograph alleged to be of President Recep Tayyip Erdoğan.
Patrol forces near the embassy dispersed the protestors who had not notified the police ahead of their demonstration and detained four people, two of whom were Finnish, for suspected harassment, slander and resistance to a government official.
The suspects were later released, reports said.
Finland is currently looking to stay in Türkiye’s good graces as it pursues the powerful 70-year member’s “yes” vote for its NATO membership with Sweden and such a provocative incident occurs for the second time in two months in the two countries.
For the past year, Helsinki’s application has been hamstrung due to Ankara’s objections based on concerns regarding members and sympathizers of terrorist groups like the PKK, its Syrian offshoot the YPG, and the Gülenist Terror Group (FETÖ).
A trilateral pact inked on the margins of a NATO summit in Madrid in June 2022 bound the Nordic countries to a series of commitments to assuage Ankara’s security concerns. However, accession talks between the sides have stalled since January after a copy of the Quran was burned outside the Turkish Embassy in Stockholm by Rasmus Paludan, leader of the Danish far-right political party Hard Line, under government authorization and police protection.
Paludan’s actions only piled on protests by PKK sympathizers targeting Erdoğan and Türkiye in prior weeks and Turkish officials put the blocks on Sweden’s bid, saying: “It isn’t realistic to say Stockholm has wholly fulfilled its commitments. They took steps... but the PKK continues to operate there.”
While Türkiye maintains its stance over Sweden’s support of terrorists, Finland’s application has elicited a warmer response from Ankara, with Erdoğan previously suggesting Türkiye could welcome the country into NATO “alone.”
