Baku. TurkicWorld:
Foreign Minister Hakan Fidan called on Denmark to take urgent action to prevent Quran burnings amid repeated provocative attacks, as he condemned the "continuous vile attacks" in a phone call with his Danish counterpart Lars Lokke Rasmussen, reports TurkicWorld with the reference to Daily Sabah.
Noting that anti-Muslim hatred has reached alarming levels in Europe, Fidan said it is unacceptable that Danish authorities permit such "vile acts" under the name of freedom of expression.
Fidan said Türkiye expects the Danish government to take immediate action to prevent such attacks.
Rasmussen on Saturday wrote on messaging platform X, formerly known as Twitter: "Turkey and Denmark are close allies. Important to not let these acts succeed in creating division." He also reiterated Denmark's "strong condemnation of these provocative acts by few individuals."
Copies of the Quran have been burned at several demonstrations in Sweden and Denmark this summer, causing outrage among Muslims and prompting protesters to storm and vandalize the Swedish embassy in Baghdad.
Denmark and Sweden have said they deplore the burning of the Quran but cannot prevent it under rules protecting free speech.
Türkiye, which holds a veto over Swedish NATO membership, has condemned the protests and called on Stockholm to take action against the perpetrators.
Earlier on Wednesday, Sweden's security service, SAPO, warned that Sweden's security situation had worsened due to the recent controversy over freedom of speech.
"The image of Sweden has changed. We have gone from being seen as a tolerant country to being a land that is anti-Muslim – that's how we are seen ... mainly the Muslim parts of the world," Susanna Trehorning, Deputy Head of the Counter-Terrorism and Counter-Subversion Unit at SAPO, told Swedish state broadcaster SVT.
However, Sweden's security-alert level has not been changed and is currently at three on a scale of five, indicating "heightened risk." Five is the highest level of threat.
Islamophobic actions carried out by small groups in Sweden and Denmark, in which Quran editions were burned, have recently led to angry protests in several Muslim countries.
Reactions were particularly strong in Iraq, whose government expelled the Swedish ambassador. Earlier, demonstrators in Baghdad broke into the Swedish embassy and set fire to it.
On Monday, the Swedish radio station SVT reported that the person responsible had canceled a Quran burning announced for Saturday. However, further actions were planned.
