MOSCOW, Jan 28 Former Prime Minister of Sweden Magdalena Andersson against the backdrop of actions with the burning of the Koran, she said that Stockholm needs to maintain close contacts with the Muslim countries that condemned them.
Leader of the Danish far-right party «Hard Course» Rasmus Paludan held another action on Friday with burning a copy of the Koran, this time — near the building of the Turkish embassy in Copenhagen, near a mosque in the Danish capital. Later it became known that a similar action was held at the consular department of the Russian Embassy in Denmark, located in Copenhagen. The Russian diplomatic mission condemned such actions.
Before that, on January 21, the leader of the «Hard Deal» burned the holy book of Muslims at the Turkish Embassy in Stockholm, having previously received permission from the Swedish authorities for this action. Turkish President Tayyip Erdogan said on January 23 that Sweden should not count on Turkish support for its bid to join NATO. The leader of the far-right Pegida movement, Edwin Wagensveld, staged an action in The Hague on Monday, tearing out several pages from the Koran, then burning them.
«Ulf Kristersson (the current prime minister of Sweden — ed.) stressed that we should keep in close contact with Turkey, and this is important, but we also need to keep in close contact with Muslim countries to explain what Swedish legislation looks like and why it works the way it does,» Andersson said in an interview on Saturday with Swedish radio Ekot.
Earlier, Swedish Prime Minister Ulf Kristersson said he expects to return to a working dialogue with the Turkish side on the issue of NATO membership against the backdrop of condemnation by Turkey and other Muslim countries of the actions with the burning of the Koran.
Andersson served as Prime Minister of Sweden from 2021 to 2022. She became the first woman in this post.