Saudi summons Swedish envoy to protest Quran burning

The Saudi Ministry of Foreign Affairs has summoned the Swedish Ambassador in Riyadh, Petra Menander, to denounce the burning of a copy of the Holy Quran outside a mosque in Stockholm last Wednesday.

During the meeting, the Saudi Foreign Ministry called on Sweden to “stop all actions that directly contradict international efforts seeking to spread the values of tolerance, moderation and rejection of extremism, and undermine the necessary mutual respect for relations between peoples and states.”

The kingdom has previously condemned the incident in which 37-year-old Salwan Momika stomped on the Muslim holy book and set several pages alight.

The burning of the Quran coincided with the first days of Eid Al-Adha, which sparked a diplomatic backlash across the Muslim world, with several countries summoning the Swedish envoys to condemn the act.

In an extraordinary meeting held in Jeddah, the Organisation of Islamic Cooperation (OIC) urged a unified position and collective measures to prevent the recurrence of the incident.

READ: OIC calls for ‘collective measures’ to prevent repeated desecration of Quran