Majid Nili Ahmadabadi, the head of the Iranian Foreign Ministry's Western Europe Department, has summoned the charge d'affaires of the Swedish Embassy in Tehran to condemn the desecration and burning of a Quran in Stockholm, the foreign ministry said Thursday.
"In the absence of the [Swedish] ambassador, the head of the Iranian Foreign Ministry's Western Europe Department summoned the chargé d'affaires of that country's embassy in Tehran. Condemning the desecration of [one of] the most important holy places of Islam that had occurred the day before in Sweden, he described the silence and passive behavior of the Swedish government as encouraging the violators of one of the fundamental and obvious principles of human rights, i.e. the principle of respect for religious and mountainous values," the ministry said on Telegram.
On Wednesday, the first day of the Muslim holiday Eid al-Adha, a protest in which a Quran was burned took place outside Stockholm's main mosque. The demonstration was approved by the Swedish authorities. Swedish Prime Minister Ulf Kristersson said the police decision was "legal but inappropriate."
The action was also condemned by Algeria, Afghanistan, Egypt, Indonesia, Lebanon, Russia, Syria, Turkey, Uzbekistan, Arab League Secretary General Ahmed Aboul Gheit and Jassim Muhammad Al-Budaiwi, the secretary general of the Cooperation Council for the Arab States of the Gulf. Foreign ministries of Jordan and the United Arab Emirates summoned Sweden's ambassadors to hand them notes of protest.
It is not the first protest in Sweden involving a Quran burning, and such demonstrations have escalated tensions between Stockholm and Ankara, whose backing Stockholm needs to become a NATO member state.