Iran delays appointing new ambassador to Sweden in protest of Quran burning

Iran will refrain from sending a new ambassador to Sweden in protest over the burning of a Quran outside a mosque in Stockholm, Iranian Foreign Minister Hossein Amirabdollahian has said.

"Although 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's issuing of a permit to desecrate the Holy Quran," Amirabdollahian said on Twitter on Sunday.

The Iranian Foreign Minister did not specify how long Iran would refrain from sending an ambassador to Sweden.

The refusal to appoint a new ambassador to Sweden from Iran is in response to an incident where a man tore up and burned a Quran outside Stockholm's central mosque on Wednesday, the first day of the Muslim Eid al Adha holidays.

'Most sacred Islamic sanctities'

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's foreign ministry summoned Sweden's charge d'affaires on Thursday to condemn what it said was an insult to the most sacred Islamic sanctities.

While Swedish police have rejected several recent applications for anti-Quran demonstrations, courts have overruled those decisions, saying they infringed on freedom of speech.

In its permit for Wednesday's demonstration, Swedish police said that while it "may have foreign policy consequences", the security risks and consequences linked to a Quran burning were not of such a nature that the application should be rejected.