(AP) Turkish President Recep Tayyip Erdogan on Thursday condemned a Quran-burning protest in Sweden, signaling that this would pose another obstacle to the country’s bid for NATO membership.
Speaking to members of his Justice and Development Party, Erdogan equated “those who permitted the crime” to those who perpetrated it.
Swedish police allowed the protest outside a mosque in central Stockholm citing freedom of speech after a court overturned a ban on a similar Quran burning.
“We will eventually teach Western monuments of hubris that insulting Muslims’ sacred values is not freedom of thought,” Erdogan said.
