U.S., Muslim countries condemn Swedish Quran burning

Turkish President Recep Tayyip Erdogan called incident of Quran burning arrogance of West and said this is not freedom of thought

WASHINGTON (AA) – The U.S. and Muslim countries Wednesday condemned the burning of the holy Muslim book the Quran in Sweden.

State Department deputy spokesman Vedant Patel said it was “disrespectful’ to burn religious texts.

Iraqi national Salwan Momika burned a copy of the Quran on the first day of the Muslim festival Eid al-Adha in Sweden.

Patel said what may be legal is not necessarily appropriate.

The incident occurred outside the Medborgarplatsen mosque in Stockholm.

Momika first threw the Quran on the ground before burning it and insulting Islam.

Many Islamic countries also condemned the incident.

Morocco reacted sharply and recalled its ambassador from Sweden. It also summoned the Swedish chargé d’affaires in Rabat to express its strong condemnation.

The United Arab Emirates also summoned the Swedish ambassador in protest. Iraq and neighboring Jordan have also summoned the top Swedish diplomats in their countries.

The Iraqi Foreign Ministry said in a statement that these incidents would arouse the feelings of Muslims around the world. The incidents constituted a dangerous provocation.

In Baghdad, dozens of supporters of influential Shiite cleric Moqtada al-Sadr briefly stormed the Swedish Embassy compound in the afternoon but did not enter the building.

Egypt called the incident a shameful act that provoked the feelings of Muslims.

Kuwait demanded that the perpetrators of such hostile acts be brought to justice.

The Arab League called the incident an attack on the core of our Islamic faith.

Saudi Arabia, Syria, the Palestinian Foreign Ministry, and the 57-member Organization of Islamic Cooperation also condemned the act.

The Taliban government in Afghanistan called Momika’s Quran burning an act of “utter contempt for this noble religion.”

The Hezbollah movement in Lebanon called on Muslim and Arab states to take action to force Sweden and other countries to prevent such an act in the future.

Turkey’s foreign minister also condemned the incident, calling it a “heinous protest in Sweden against our holy book on the first day of the blessed Eid al-Adha.”

Turkish President Recep Tayyip Erdogan called it the arrogance of the West. He vowed to teach this arrogance a lesson and said this is not freedom of thought.

The incident could lead Erdogan to rule out Sweden’s entry into NATO at the upcoming summit in Vilnius.

Ankara in January canceled a planned visit by the Swedish defense minister after deciding to allow protests outside the Turkish Embassy in Stockholm.

On June 12, a Swedish appeals court upheld a lower court’s decision to overturn a ban on Koran burning.

It ruled that police had no legal basis to prevent two Quran-burning protests earlier this year.