Turkish Foreign Ministry Summons Norwegian Ambassador Over Planned Burning of Quran

MOSCOW (Sputnik) - The Turkish Foreign Ministry summoned the Norwegian ambassador in connection with the planned burning of Quran on February 3 and expressed its protest to him, a source in the ministry told Sputnik on Thursday.

The ambassador was summoned after reports of “a planned action to desecrate the Holy Quran on February 3,” the source said.

“We stressed that we condemn in the strongest terms Norway's attitude towards preventing provocative actions that clearly qualify as hate crimes. We expect that the Norwegian authorities will not allow to conduct this action, such acts are unacceptable,” the source said.

Earlier this year, Rasmus Paludan, the leader of the anti-islamic Danish political party Stram Kurs, burned copies of the Quran in Sweden and Denmark in a protest against the Turkish leadership. He promised to burn Muslim holy book each Friday unless Turkey approves Sweden`s bid to join NATO. A similar protest was carried out by Dutch politician and leader of the Islamophobic group Pegida Edwin Wagensveld in the Netherlands, when he tore out pages from a copy of the Quran and burned them in front of the parliamentary building in The Hague.