Protests in Stockholm, including Koran-burning, draw strong condemnation from Turkey

Anyone who burns a Koran to upset Muslims is an idiot.

Anyone who gets upset about the burning of a book is an idiot.

Bronco: but now anti-war Swedish activists are taking a stand.

Too bad there aren't more of those in Russia.

Sweden has always been a neutral country and Swedes seem to want to keep it that way.

Well. It all changed after Russia invaded Ukraine.

Below is about poll results on Sweden joining NATO (from Wikipedia)

Date. Pollster Support. Oppose

July 2022 Statista. 64% 21%

May 2022 Statista 58%. 19%

April 2022 Statista 45%. 33%

February 2022 Statista 41% 35%

Turkey is closer to Russia than NATO and Sweden is closer to NATO than Russia, but Sweden can’t join NATO because of Turkey. Something’s off.

"Book burning" is not a good symbol.

Sweden has always been a neutral country and Swedes seem to want to keep it that way.

Sounds like you are confusing the far right with ordinary Swedes. Of course the far right are sympathetic to Russia, are anti-NATO and anti-Muslim, as perhaps you may be also. But they are unlikely to represent the ordinary Swede who tend to be very pleasant people with a welcoming attitude and a hatred of fascism.

The Burning of any Holy Book The Bible, The Koran, The Torah, or any faith scripts is a symbol of deep hate in the distorted minds of any human.

To protest is one thing but to attack the faith of others is Pure Hate, nothing less.

Islamists destroy many items of other religions like the Buddhist statues in Afghanistan. Publish cartoons mocking Jews.

NATO’s goal of “keeping the Russians out, the Americans in and the Germans down” still applies to every NATO member, except for Turkey; Turkey’s the bridge between Europe/the west and the Middle East/the east so…; Turkey’s NATO membership was always about politics (not enough heart/symbolism, just politics)…; one of the reasons why millions of (Western) Europeans look at Turkey in a different way.

You do not understand Turkey's place in NATO. When NATO was formed Albania, Yugoslavia, Romania and Bulgaria were all communist nations and all of these except Yugoslavia belonged to the Warsaw Pact. Turkey and Greece are what protected NATO's southern flank and having Turkey in NATO theoretically allowed NATO to cut off the Soviet Black Sea Fleet from the Mediterranean. None of this touchy-feely bridge to Asia crap mattered. It still doesn't from a geostrategic perspective. What mattered was keeping Soviet forces from having direct access to the Med.

Now that Albania, Romania and Bulgaria are NATO members, along with former Yugoslav states Croatia, North Macedonia and Montenegro, Turkey no longer anchors NATO's southern flank the way it once did and has lost much of its strategic importance to the alliance. Working against the alliance's best interests as they often do doesn't help their standing. Turkiye under Sultan Erdogan too often plays adversaries off against each other angling for the best deal for Turkiye even when doing so angers NATO members and works directly against the interests of the alliance.

There is always a ransom has to pay for arrogant expansionism, especially at eastwards!

The only thing arrogantly expanding is Russia, westwards.

Sweden has always been a neutral country and Swedes seem to want to keep it that way.

I feel like the longer Russia's barbarism is demonstrated the more support Sweden will have for joining NATO and it was 57% in April.

Finland has already said that if Sweden doesn't join, they won't join either.

You're looking at this the wrong way: since it is a two for one deal, there will be all the more pressure to dump Turkey in favor of making the Baltic a NATO lake.

Some seem to be incapable of understanding the liberal separation of powers and the right to free speech. To them everything is about political partisanship. On the whole, like Erdogan, they tend to be conservatives who want everyone to think the same - like them - but ideologists of any flavour are all the same, left or right.

Burning a holy book is absolutely pathetic and disgusting. What's the matter with these people?

It is a legitimate form of protest. In the US it is considered protected political free speech. No entity should be above criticism in a free society, not even and maybe especially not religion. Please read James Madison's speech to the Virginia Legislature "A Memorial and Remonstrance Against Religious Assessments" and John Adams' 1765 newspaper article "A Dissertation on the Canon and Feudal Law" to see how passionately anti clerical some early American Presidents were. They were as critical of Christianity as it was practiced then as many in the west are harshly critical of Islam today. Were a modern politician to give either speech today they would probably be excoriated for "hate speech", no matter how well researched and thoughtful their words were.

In Istanbul, people in a group of around 200 protesters set fire to a Swedish flag in front of the Swedish consulate in response to the burning of the Koran.

And in response to this vile, hateful attack against the honorable symbol of the Swedish nation state, Swedish people...shrugged.

Swedes are starting to see the fallout from its reckless and irresponsible immigration/refugee policies over the past decade or two. No NATO for you!

Swedes are starting to see the fallout from its reckless and irresponsible immigration/refugee policies over the past decade or two. No NATO for you!

This has literally nothing to do with immigration unless you think banning muslims would have kept out a few Kurds.

Burning a holy book is absolutely pathetic and disgusting. What's the matter with these people?

Putin and XI were laughing loud in their resorts while watching an infighting among NATO. Not big enough, way to go and go. Burning tge Quran was an inexcusable attack at faith.There is always a ransom has to pay for arrogant expansionism, especially at eastwards!

Trying to inflame others by senseless acts produces other senseless acts as the Swedish flag burning shows

Today  08:36 am JST “ Turkey is closer to Russia than NATO and Sweden is closer to NATO than Russia, but Sweden can’t join NATO because of Turkey. Something’s off. “

NATO’s goal of “keeping the Russians out, the Americans in and the Germans down” still applies to every NATO member, except for Turkey; Turkey’s the bridge between Europe/the west and the Middle East/the east so…; Turkey’s NATO membership was always about politics (not enough heart/symbolism, just politics)…; one of the reasons why millions of (Western) Europeans look at Turkey in a different way.

Sweden has always been a neutral country

true, but when I was in Sweden, there were many neo-Nazis with very un-neutral views. Very.

The Burning of any Holy Book The Bible, The Koran, The Torah, or any faith scripts is a symbol of deep hate in the distorted minds of any human.

but these books are as an excuse for hatred.

Good !!, no more countries for the pathetic pirate NATO circus..

As long as the protest is peaceful. Burn away!

Sweden, the darling country often quoted by the left as some sort of utopian Neverland that we all should be striving towards. Turns out they’ve got the same extreme melon heads the rest of us have too.

Burning the Koran. Really guys? That’s your cause? Picking fights?