NNA – The Kuwaiti foreign ministry said Friday it had summoned Sweden#39;s ambassador to protest against a Koran burning outside a Stockholm mosque that sparked a diplomatic backlash across the Muslim world.
Under a heavy police presence on Wednesday, Salwan Momika, a 37-year-old Iraqi who fled to Sweden several years ago, stomped on the Koran before setting several pages alight in front of Stockholm#39;s largest mosque.
Swedish police had granted him a permit in line with free speech protections, but authorities later said they had opened an investigation over quot;agitationquot;.
On Friday, Kuwait summoned Sweden#39;s envoy, based in the United Arab Emirates, over the incident, after the UAE, Morocco and Iraq also called in the country#39;s diplomatic representatives.
quot;The deputy minister of foreign affairs handed the Swedish ambassador an official protest note containing the condemnation and denunciation of the State of Kuwait for the burning of a copy of the Holy Koran by an extremist,quot; the foreign ministry said.
The note also denounced Sweden for repeatedly permitting Koran burnings, the foreign ministry said, after a Swedish-Danish right-wing extremist also burned a copy of the Koran near the Turkish embassy in Stockholm in January.
The latest incident, coinciding with the start of the Eid al-Adha holiday and the end of the annual pilgrimage to Mecca, sparked anger across the Muslim world.nbsp;
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