Iraq orders expulsion of Swedish ambassador over Quran controversy

Author: Editors Desk Source: The Washington Post

July 20, 2023 at 14:50

Protesters scale a wall at the Swedish Embassy in Baghdad on Thursday. (Ali Jabar/AP)

Thursday’s early-morning attack on the Swedish Embassy came after news broke that Stockholm had granted a permit for another demonstration by Momika, this time outside the country’s Iraqi Embassy, and with the stated intent of once again publicly damaging a Quran.

BAGHDAD — Iraq’s prime minister said Thursday that he was expelling the Swedish ambassador after a protest was allowed to take place in Stockholm in which a copy of the Quran was desecrated.

The order came after hundreds of young men, many of them supporters of the powerful Shiite cleric Moqtada al-Sadr, stormed the Swedish Embassy in Baghdad in the early hours of Thursday for the second time in the past few weeks, setting fire to a portion of the entrance hall and inflaming a growing political crisis.

While condemning the assault on the embassy, Prime Minister Mohammed Shia al-Sudani said the ambassador had been asked to leave Iraqi territory, while Iraq’s chief diplomat in Sweden was ordered to vacate the embassy in Stockholm. The Communications Ministry said that the work of Ericsson, one of Sweden’s largest companies, also would be suspended in Iraq.

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