Danish MP Soren Sondergaard said, on Thursday, that he is supposed to be an observer for the upcoming presidential elections in Turkey within the Organization for Security and Cooperation in Europe, pointing out that Ankara opposed his coming because he visited the Kurdish-dominated Syrian Democratic Forces in the past.
Sondergaard, who belongs to the Socialist Red-Green Alliance, told the Danish public television station TV2 that Ankara had accused him of “promoting a terrorist organization”.
“It is absolutely true that I visited those who fought the Islamic State, the Syrian Democratic Forces,” he said, adding that he was “proud” of that.
Sondergaard announced that the Organization for Security and Cooperation in Europe had submitted a formal complaint to Ankara, according to Agence France-Presse.
“A country cannot choose the parliamentarians who act as observers,” he said.
“This casts a shadow over the Turkish elections, as they are already showing that they want to control it,” he added.
The presidential elections scheduled for May 14 seem decisive, and the candidate of the united opposition, Kemal Kilicdaroglu (74 years old), poses the most difficult electoral challenge for President Recep Tayyip Erdogan (69 years old) since he came to power in 2002.