ANKARA, Dec. 20 (Xinhua) -- Turkish Foreign Minister Mevlut Cavusoglu on Tuesday criticized a Swedish court's refusal to extradite a Turkish journalist who Ankara says is a member of the Gulen movement.
"The refusal of our extradition request for Bulent Kenes was a very negative development. We are not expecting good words from Sweden and Finland but concrete steps," Cavusoglu said at a joint press conference with visiting Foreign Minister of Gambia Mamadou Tangara in the capital Ankara.
"Everyone must abide by the commitments outlined in the trilateral protocol," he noted.
Cavusoglu revealed that Swedish Foreign Minister Tobias Billstrom will visit Ankara on Thursday to discuss the Nordic country's NATO bid.
Finland and Sweden's NATO bid was initially blocked by the Turkish government, which accused them of supporting "terrorists" as they rejected Türkiye's requests for extradition of the suspects affiliated with the outlawed Kurdistan Workers' Party and the Gulen movement.
On June 28, Türkiye, Sweden and Finland reached a trilateral memorandum of understanding ahead of the NATO Madrid summit. The Nordic states pledged to support Türkiye's fight against terrorism and agreed to address its deportation or extradition requests for terror suspects.
Kenes, former editor-in-chief of the now-closed daily Today's Zaman, was among those Türkiye asked Sweden to extradite in exchange for ratification of the country's NATO membership.
The Turkish government accuses the Gulen movement of infiltrating the state bureaucracy and attempting a coup on July 15, 2016, in which 250 people were killed. ■