Far right Swedish politician Rasmus Paludan spoke for an hour before setting fire to a Koran. Photograph: FREDRIK SANDBERG/TT News Agency/AFP via Getty ImagesTurkey has condemned a demonstration that involved the burning of Korans in Sweden on Saturday, further inflaming tensions between the two countries amid Stockholm’s Nato bid.
A day prior, Turkey’s foreign ministry summoned Sweden’s ambassador over the permission granted to Paludan’s protest. It was the second time Sweden’s ambassador to Turkey has been summoned this month, after having had to answer for a January 12th stunt during which a Kurdish group hung an effigy of Turkey’s president, Recep Tayyip Erdogan, in Stockholm.
“Our relations with Türkiye are very important to Sweden, and we look forward to continuing the dialogue on common security and defence issues at a later date,” he tweeted on Saturday.