ANKARA, January 27. /TASS/. The Turkish Foreign Ministry issued a statement Friday, condemning the burning of a Quran in Denmark and calling on European administrations not to "stand aside" and react to such actions.
"We most decisively condemn that the crime, committed against our holy book, the Quran, committed in Sweden on the grounds of religious hate, was committed once again in Denmark, but by the same Islamophobic charlatan. The fact that this heinous act, which took place in Denmark after Sweden and the Netherlands, was not prevented, despite all our warnings, is concerning in terms of revealing the dangerous scale that religious hatred and intolerance has reached in Europe by abusing so-called freedom," the statement says. "We remind the administrations, which are an inseparable part of European society, and who fail to react to these actions that marginalize Muslims, about their responsibility and we urge them not to stand aside and watch while universal values, which they claim to protect, are being trampled on."
On Friday, the Turkish Foreign Ministry summoned the Danish envoy because the Danish authorities authorized a rally with a burning of the Quran in Copenhagen.
Earlier, a major scandal broke out between Turkey and Sweden because of the burning of the Quran near the Turkish embassy in Stockholm. On January 21, leader of the far-right "Straight Course" party Rasmus Paludan publicly burned the Quran before the embassy. In his speech, he criticized Turkish President Recep Tayyip Erdogan and displayed a cartoon of Prophet Mohammad. Later, Erdogan claimed that Sweden should not expect Turkey’s endorsement of its NATO membership application after this and other anti-Turkish rallies.