Iran Delays Ambassador Appointment to Sweden After Quran Burning Incident

Iran’s Foreign Minister, Hossein Amir-Abdollahian, announced on Sunday that Iran would withhold the dispatch of a new ambassador to Sweden. This move is a reaction to a recent incident involving the burning of the Quran outside a mosque in Stockholm. A man, self-described as an Iraqi refugee seeking to ban the Islamic holy book, was charged by Swedish police with agitation against an ethnic or national group after he tore up and burned the Quran.

Amir-Abdollahian explained on Twitter that while the administrative processes for the appointment of a new ambassador had concluded, the dispatch has been postponed due to the Swedish government’s perceived allowance of the Quran desecration. The length of this diplomatic pause was not specified.

Swedish police, who have recently rejected several applications for anti-Quran demonstrations, were overruled by courts citing freedom of speech. Although the police acknowledged the potential foreign policy implications of the Quran burning, they determined that the associated security risks didn’t warrant rejecting the demonstration’s permit.