TEHRAN – Iranian Foreign Minister Hossein Amir Abdollahian has slammed the heinous move of Quran desecration by Sweden and Denmark as the OIC held an emergency online conference late on Monday at the level of foreign ministers to debate the recent incidents of the Quran burning in the Scandinavian countries.

The OIC addressed Quran desecrations and voiced “disappointment” with Sweden and Denmark’s responses.

During the meeting, Amir Abdollahian said Iran puts forward some specific proposals as follows: 

1) Sending a delegation from the OIC to Sweden and Denmark with the presence of the secretary general to meet with the officials of such two countries and convey the deep concerns of the Islamic Ummah due to such desecration. As a result, all desecrators should receive severe punishment. 

2) The organization should immediately deal with this vital issue with the agenda of proposing solutions to criminalize such derogatory actions at the national, regional and international levels, both in the real and virtual spaces. 

At the beginning of the meeting, the OIC Secretary General, Hissein Brahim Taha, expressed regret that no official action was taken by authorities in Sweden and Denmark to stop the desecration of the Quran. The OIC chief reiterated that these two governments should take official action to stop those actions from happening again.

Taha urged OIC countries to take sovereign measures in relation to Sweden and Denmark to express their protests and opposition to the positions of those two countries’ authorities regarding the repeated desecration of Quran. 

The Saudi Foreign Minister, Faisal bin Farhan, said in a statement, “The Saudi government believes in the importance of establishing the values of dialogue, forgiveness, and respect among nations, religions, and cultures.” 

Saudi Arabia, the current OIC president, along with Iraq had called for holding the urgent meeting and rejected any behavior that fosters extremism and intolerance.

The highest-ranking Saudi official went on to say, “The Saudi government strongly condemns the repeated desecration of the Quran and emphasizes that these provocative actions are not acceptable by any means.”

“We invite all OIC member countries to work together to take practical and effective measures to prevent the recurrence of such acts,” Bin Farhan added.