The Swedish parliament is set to vote on 16 November on a constitutional amendment that could lead to a tightening of anti-terror legislation. The change would allow for the restriction of "freedom of association of groups involved in terrorism". The announcement from the Swedish parliament came a day after Prime Minister Ulf Kristersson visited Turkey on 8 November. After talks with Turkish President Tayyip Erdogan, Kristersson told a joint press conference that the constitutional amendments include combating terrorism and terrorist organisations such as the PKK in Sweden. "Sweden will fulfil all the commitments it has made to Turkey in the fight against the terrorist threat," Kristersson said. He said his government's mandate was to put law and order first, and that included "terrorist organisations like the PKK".

In the run-up to the newly elected Prime Minister's inaugural visit to Erdogan, Foreign Minister Tobias Billström had declared a distancing of the Swedish government from the Autonomous Administration of North and East Syria, explicitly naming the PYD (Democratic Union Party) and the YPG (People’s Defense Units). Billström argued that their links to the Kurdistan Workers' Party (PKK) were "too close to be good for relations between us and Turkey." His government's main goal, he said, was Sweden's NATO membership.

In a press release on the Swedish Prime Minister’s visit to Turkey and meeting with the Turkish President, the Executive Committee of the Kurdistan National Congress (KNK) said Kristersson's statement did not only betray all Kurds but also manipulated the Kurdish people's freedom struggle.

“Kurds are deeply disappointed by the unfair statement, which shows that he is far from the truth and gives misleading information. It seems that he is allying himself with Erdogan and Turkey's state terror and war against the Kurdish people and their freedom struggle. It shows that Kristersson believes Erdogan's lies about the dirty war he is waging against the Kurdish people. Maybe Kristersson wants to sell even more sophistic weapons to kill even more Kurds? After all, the arms embargo has been lifted,” said the KNK.

The statement continued, “The whole world knows that it is the Kurdish people who are the victims of Turkey's and Erdogan's warfare. More than fifty thousand Kurds have become victims of Turkey's barbaric war! More than 4000 thousand villages have been razed and burned to the ground! They disappeared without a trace! Over four million Kurds have been forced to become refugees both in Turkish cities to the west and in several European countries. The results of the Turkish warfare are confirmed by several international organizations, such as the UN, the EU, the Red Cross, Amnesty International and several civil society organisations. But Ulf Kristersson does not want to see or know about the bitter truth.”

The KNK statement further included: “We assume that Kristersson also knows that Turkey is using banned chemical weapons against the Kurds! Therefore, we wonder if Kristersson understands the suffering of the Kurdish people and can show some empathy. Does Ulf Kristersson know that his counterpart, Erdogan, has his hands red with the blood of the Kurdish people?

Still, the whole world remembers how the Kurds fought against IS and other radical jihadists and Islamists in Rojava, north-eastern Syria. They defeated the terrorists and are now able to bring security to a region that is now particularly affected by Turkey's war on terror. We are also quite sure that Kristersson knows that Erdogan was the patron of those terrorist organisations."

Stressing that Kurds all over the world expect the Swedish government not to choose to use the Kurdish freedom struggle as a pawn, KNK said the Kurdish freedom struggle has nothing to do with terrorism.

The KNK Executive Council concluded the statement by calling upon the Swedish people and all democratic forces to “protest against the unfair treatment of the Kurdish people.”