The journey continued to Ankara where they were received by Atatürk, Foreign Minister Tevfik Rüştü Aras, members of the government and administration.

Turkey summoned Sweden's ambassador to answer for a video posted by the Swedish Solidarity Committee for Rojava that depicted an Erdoğan effigy swinging by his legs from a rope.

[25] On the same day, President of the Turkish Grand National Assembly Mustafa Şentop cancelled the Swedish Parliament Speaker Andreas Norlén's visit to Turkey.

[26] On 21 January 2023, leader of the far-right Danish political party Stram Kurs, Rasmus Paludan was permitted to burn a Quran outside the Turkish embassy in Stockholm.

[30] However, Turkey refuses to capture and extradite the internationally wanted Swedish criminal Rawa Majid, since he bought a Turkish citizenship through the Golden Passport program, in exchange for investments.

[34] According to Swedish paper Dagens Nyheter in 2017, nine mosques in Sweden have imams sent and paid for by the Turkish Directorate of Religious Affairs (Diyanet).

[41][42] Turkish Prime Minister Recep Tayyip Erdoğan responded by issuing a statement saying "We strongly condemn this resolution, which is made for political calculations.

[42] Turkey's ambassador to Sweden Zergun Koruturk said on Aktuellt that there would be "drastic effects" of a long-term nature on relations between the two countries, saying "I am very disappointed.

[43] The Swedish Police did not deny the permit as there is no law against blasphemy in Sweden, and no explicit prohibition against burning the flag of any country, but a strong protection of freedom of speech in the constitution.

During the 2022 Sweden riots, the police only occasionally denied Quran burnings that posed severe risk of disorderly conduct, when the applications were late.

[45] The Swedish government were not allowed to decide on the demonstration, as they are forbidden to tell the police or other authorities/government agencies how to interpret the law and act in a specific case due to the constitutional prohibition of ministerial rule in Sweden.

[47][48] Despite the apology, Turkish President Erdogan said that Sweden can rely on "terrorists" and "extremists" to protect it instead of a strong NATO ally who happens to be proud and defensive of its Islamic values.

The go ahead came two weeks after a Swedish appeals court rejected the police's decision to deny permits for two demonstrations in Stockholm which were to include Quran burnings.

[55] The Swedish Foreign Ministry condemned the burning of a copy of the Quran, carried out by an Iraqi born man outside the Stockholm Central Mosque on the first day of the Muslim festival of Eid al Adha.

[56] In the meantime, Türkiye's newly sworn in Foreign Minister Hakan Fidan voiced concerns over the impact of the potential Swedish membership to NATO, in terms of both security and strategic implications, after the Nordic state's inability to stop attacks against the Quran, which can create further problems for the alliance.

[57] President Recep Tayyip Erdogan said, "We will not say yes to (Sweden's) entry into NATO as long as you allow our holy book, the Quran, to be burned, torn apart, and to be done with (the approval of) your security personnel.

[59] The United Nations General Assembly responded by adopting a resolution on 25 July 2023 which considered violence against holy books to be violations of international law.

Police intervened as Kais Tunisia was loudly responding to Iraqi-born extremist Salwan Momika's words while burning the Muslim holy book in front of the Stockholm Mosque.

[61] A meeting of the Turkish-Swedish Security Mechanism was held with the participation of senior officials from both countries in Türkiye's capital Ankara on 21 January 2025.