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 comes a day after Prime Minister Ulf Kristersson visited Turkey. After talks with Turkish President Erdogan, Kristersson told a joint press conference on Tuesday 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.

The Syrian Democratic Council (MSD) is concerned about the Swedish genuflection to Erdogan. The Swedish government's pronouncements shortly after World Kobanê Day were shocking and triggered anger, said the MSD, which has been campaigning for a political solution to the crisis in Syria since 2015.

"The resistance of Kobanê initiated the defeat of ISIS and led to the weakening of Islamist terrorist organisations. Ankara has supported ISIS from the beginning. We point out that the relations between Ankara and the terrorist organisations are not a secret for the Swedish government. We inform the Swedish people and their government that the north-east of Syria is an important part of the country and that the fight carried out here contributes to the security of the world. The Swedish government knows that this fight has resulted in 35,000 deaths and war casualties of the YPG, YPJ and SDF. Sweden is not such a weak country that it can be blackmailed by the Turkish state and must make concessions on democratic and legal standards to satisfy a dictator,” MSD stated.

The MSD called on the Swedish people, political parties and civil society organisations to resist this stance and warned that giving in to the Turkish state's blackmail would also harm Sweden in the long run.