Turkey’s foreign minister has criticised the burning of the Qur’an outside a Stockholm mosque in a demonstration that could further complicate Ankara’s long-delayed approval of Sweden’s application to join Nato.
The protest came as Turkey’s president, Recep Tayyip Erdoğan, told the German chancellor, Olaf Scholz, on Wednesday that Sweden had made some progress, but not enough. Nato said top diplomats from both countries would meet in Brussels next week.
“I condemn the vile protest in Sweden against our holy book on the first day of the blessed Eid al-Adha,” the Turkish foreign minister, Hakan Fidan, tweeted on Wednesday, adding that it was “unacceptable to allow anti-Islam protests in the name of freedom of expression”.
Swedish police had allowed the protest, attended by about 200 people on Wednesday, the start of the three-day Eid al-Adha Muslim holiday, saying the security risks “were not of a nature to justify, under current laws, a decision to reject the request”.
The Swedish public broadcaster SVT reported that the event passed off peacefully, saying the man responsible for the demonstration tore pages from the Qur’an, wiped his shoes with some of them and burned others, then placed a slice of bacon in the book.
Police said the organiser was being investigated for incitement and violating a seasonal ban on lighting fires in Sweden. One man was reportedly suspected of attempted assault, and another who was carrying a rock was removed by police.
Media reports named the organiser as Salwan Momika, 37, who reportedly fled to Sweden from Iraq and has denied his intention was to sabotage its Nato application, saying he had considered waiting to stage his protest until after Sweden had joined the alliance.
“I don’t want to harm this country that received me and preserved my dignity,” Momika said in April. In his protest application, however, he said he wanted “to protest in front of the mosque in Stockholm, and … express my opinion about the Qur’an”.
A series of protests in Sweden against Islam and in support of Kurdish rights have offended Turkey, which has held up the Nordic country’s accession process, accusing Sweden of harbouring people it considers terrorists and demanding their extradition. (Guardian)