Sweden and Finland must deport or extradite around 130 "terrorists" to Turkey before the Turkish parliament approves their bids for NATO membership, Turkish President Recep Erdogan said

Recep Tayyip Erdogan - Turkish politician and prime minister.

Born on February 26, 1954 in Istanbul. Graduated, reported Reuters.

"We said - look, if you don't hand over your terrorists to us, we can't push (the ratification of the NATO membership bid) through parliament in any way," Erdogan said on Sunday in comments at a joint press conference he gave with the Swedish Prime Minister Wolf Kristersson in November.

"For this to pass through the parliament, first of all you have to hand over more than 100, about 130 of these terrorists to us," the Turkish president specified.

Finnish politicians interpreted Erdogan's request as an angry response to the incident in Stockholm last week, when an effigy of the Turkish president was hanged at a small protest in the Swedish capital.

They hung a dummy of Erdogan upside down in front of Stockholm City Hall

"It was probably a reaction, I think, to the events of the last few days," Finnish Foreign Minister Pekka Haavisto said on television.

He stated that he was not aware of any new official requests from Turkey.

In response to the incident, Turkey canceled a planned visit to Ankara by Swedish Parliament Speaker Andreas Norlen.

Instead, he went on a visit to Helsinki today.

"We emphasize that in Finland and in Sweden we have freedom of expression.

We cannot control it," Finnish parliament speaker Matti Vanhanen said at a joint press conference with Norlen.

Also today, Swedish Prime Minister Kristersson said his country was in a "good position" to secure ratification of Turkey's NATO accession.

For his part, Turkish presidential spokesman Ibrahim Kalen said on Saturday that time was running out for possible ratification by the Turkish parliament before presidential and parliamentary elections in May.

Recep Erdogan