Turkey summons the Danish ambassador ahead of a protest in front of the Turkish Embassy in Copenhagen

27 Jan. () –

The Government of Turkey has summoned this Friday the Danish ambassador to the country, Danny Annan, to condemn the protest called in front of the Turkish Embassy in Copenhagen, the Danish capital, in which the far-right Rasmus Paludan is expected to burn a copy of the Quran, as he did last weekend at a similar event in Sweden.

The Turkish Foreign Ministry has indicated that “the Danish ambassador has been summoned after the authorities have authorized the protest next to the Embassy, ​​where attacks against our holy book, the Koran, are expected.”

In this sense, the Turkish authorities have described the call as a “provocative action” and have indicated that it constitutes a “hate crime”, according to the Anatolia news agency. “This attitude on the part of Denmark is unacceptable”, they have asserted before stressing that they hope that Copenhagen will prevent the holding of the demonstration, scheduled for this Friday.

Paludan said in a message posted on his Instagram account on Thursday that he plans to burn a copy of the Koran in front of the Dortheavej Mosque in Copenhagen. Thus, he has defined himself as a “Christian in a Christian country” and has specified that he will take a copy of the Koran and a match with him.

Over the weekend, another copy was burned by Paludan outside the Turkish Embassy in Stockholm, prompting international condemnation. The act was followed by similar incidents by politicians including Edwin Wagensveld, who leads the far-right Patriots Europeans Against the Islamization of the West (PEGIDA) movement, tearing out pages from the Koran and setting them on fire.

The protests in Sweden are part of Turkey’s refusal to facilitate Stockholm’s accession to NATO on the grounds that the country is not meeting the requirements agreed upon by the parties during the NATO summit that took place in June 2022 in Madrid.