DUBAI: Iran will refrain from sending a new ambassador to Sweden in protest over the burning of a Qur'an outside a mosque in Stockholm, Iranian Foreign Minister Hossein Amirabdollahian said on Sunday.
A man tore up and burned a Qur'an outside Stockholm鈥檚 central mosque on Wednesday, the first day of the Muslim Eid al Adha holidays.
Swedish police charged the man who burned the holy book with agitation against an ethnic or national group. In a newspaper interview, he described himself as an Iraqi refugee seeking to ban it.
Iran鈥檚 foreign ministry summoned Sweden鈥檚 charge d鈥檃ffaires on Thursday to condemn what it said was an insult to the most sacred Islamic sanctities.
鈥淎lthough administrative procedures to appoint a new ambassador to Sweden have ended, the process of dispatching them has been held off due to the Swedish government鈥檚 issuing of a permit to desecrate the Holy Qur'an,鈥� Amirabdollahian said on Twitter on Sunday.
He did not specify how long Iran would refrain from sending an ambassador to Sweden.
While Swedish police have rejected several recent applications for anti-Qur'an demonstrations, courts have overruled those decisions, saying they infringed freedom of speech.
In its permit for Wednesday鈥檚 demonstration, Swedish police said that while it 鈥渕ay have foreign policy consequences,鈥� the security risks and consequences linked to a Qur'an burning were not of such a nature that the application should be rejected.