Sweden has bowed to Turkish demand and agreed to extradite a fraud suspect after Ankara threatened to freeze Stockholm's bid to join the NATO military alliance.
The move is the first known extradition since Turkey threatened to block the applications of Sweden and Neighbouring Finland earlier this year.
Sweden and Finland applied to join NATO in May, setting aside their longstanding stance of military nonalignment.
It was a major shift of security arrangements for the two countries after neighbouring Russia launched its war on Ukraine in late February - which caused public opinion in the two Nordic countries to swing in favour of joining the alliance.
However, Turkish President Recep Tayyip Erdogan has threatened to block the two nations from NATO membership unless they meet several demands, including the extradition of people Ankara considers 'terrorists'.
Erdogan accuses the two countries of being havens for Kurdish militants, specifically highlighting the outlawed Kurdistan Workers' Party (PKK).
The man facing extradition was identified in Swedish court documents as Okan Kale, and was convicted in Turkey of credit card fraud in 2013 and 2016.
He sought asylum in Sweden in 2011 but his request was denied. He was granted refugee status in Italy in 2014.
Kale's name features on a list published in Turkish media of people that Ankara wants extradited from Sweden.
The justice ministry would however not comment on whether the man was on a list drawn up by Turkey.
It noted that Ankara had sought his extradition in 2021 - long before the Stockholm's application to join the North Atlantic alliance in May.
'This is a regular, routine matter,' justice ministry spokeswoman Angelica Vallgren told AFP. 'The extradition request was received last year.'
Kale has been held in Swedish custody since December 2021.
He maintains he has been wrongfully sentenced because he is a convert to Christianity, refused to do military service and has Kurdish roots, SVT said.
In an agreement signed by Sweden and Finland at a NATO summit in Madrid in late June, the two countries agreed to examine Turkish extradition requests 'expeditiously and thoroughly'.
Erdogan said Sweden had made a 'promise' to extradite '73 terrorists'.
'This is a normal routine matter. The person in question is a Turkish citizen and convicted of fraud offences in Turkey in 2013 and 2016,' Swedish Minister of Justice Morgan Johansson told Reuters in a text message.
'The Supreme Court has examined the issue as usual and concluded that there are no obstacles to extradition,' he said.
A spokesperson for the Ministry of Justice declined to confirm whether the man was on the list of people Turkey has demanded to have extradited.
The countries sought out NATO membership earlier this year to guarantee their security in the wake of Russian President Vladimir Putin's offensive in Ukraine.
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