Turkish President Recep Tayyip Erdogan led a chorus of criticism from the Muslim world aimed at Sweden on Thursday, a day after an Iraqi man burned pages of a Quran outside a Stockholm mosque.
Erdogan said in televised remarks that he condemnded Wednesday's incident in Stockholm.
"We will eventually teach the arrogant Westerners that insulting Muslims is not freedom of thought," Erdogan said, paying little heed to the protester's own non-Western identity.
"We will show our reaction in the strongest possible terms, until a determined victory against terrorist organizations and Islamophobia is achieved."
Erdogan's comments seemed to hint at him looking to use the incident to continue to stifle Sweden's bid to join NATO, submitted in the aftermath of Russia's invasion of Ukraine. More talks between the two sides are scheduled for next week.
Erdogan accuses Sweden of harboring what he calls "terrorists," usually either Kurdish activists or supporters of a former ally turned rival of Erdogan's, Fethullah Gulen. The president has also criticized comparable past demonstrations in Sweden that he deemed to be either anti-Turkey or anti-Islam or both.
Although the protest's impact on Erdogan and his government might be the most pressing concern for Stockholm, given its current political efforts, Turkey's criticism was just one voice among many from the Islamic world on Thursday.
https://www.dw.com/en/sweden-muslim-countries-denounce-iraqi-mans-quran-burning/a-66069592
