A man tore up and burned a copy of the Koran in front of Stockholm’s Grand Mosque today, prompting immediate condemnation from Ankara and adding new “clouds” to the Nordic country’s bid to lift Turkey’s veto on NATO membership.

The incident comes just weeks before the North Atlantic Treaty Organization’s summit, at which many of its member states want to see Sweden become NATO’s 32nd member and are pressuring Turkey not to stand in the way.

Swedish police earlier today gave permission for a small rally outside Stockholm’s largest mosque, during which its organizer had announced he would burn a copy of the Koran, on the first day of the major Muslim holiday of Eid al-Adha.

A series of anti-Islam and pro-Kurdish rights demonstrations in Sweden have angered Ankara.

About 200 bystanders today saw one of two rally organizers tear pages from a copy of the Koran and wipe his shoes with them before putting a piece of bacon inside the book and setting it on fire to burn it, while the other protester spoke to loudspeaker.

Some bystanders chanted “Allah is great” in Arabic to protest the burning, and one man was arrested by police after he tried to throw a stone.

A supporter of the demonstration shouted “let it burn” as the holy book was burned.

Ankara’s reaction was immediate, with Turkish Foreign Minister Hakan Fidan condemning a “vulgar” and “vile” action. “I curse the deed the despicable act committed against our Holy Book, the Holy Quran, on the first day of Eid al-Adha,” the Turkish Foreign Minister wrote on his Twitter account. “It is unacceptable to allow these anti-Islamic actions under the guise of freedom of expression.” “Turning a blind eye to such heinous acts indicates complicity,” the head of Turkish diplomacy continued.

Last January during a demonstration, the burning of a copy of the Koran in front of the Turkish embassy in Stockholm had angered Ankara, leading to the suspension of talks with Stockholm over its request to join NATO.

The organizer of today’s rally, 37-year-old Salwan Momika, who says he is an Iraqi refugee and wants the Koran banned, had previously said he wanted to “express his point of view”. “I want to tear up the Koran and burn it,” he wrote in the request he filed with the police.

Stockholm police had not approved the holding of two demonstrations, on February 6 and 9, during which their organizers would burn the Koran, as they had assessed that there was a risk to public order.

The protesters had appealed the decision and were vindicated in early April. The first-instance decision was upheld by the appeals court, considering that the security risks cited by the police “were not clearly connected” to the demonstrations in question.

The Stockholm police relied on this decision to allow today’s rally.

Prime Minister Ulf Kristerson told a news conference today that he would not speculate on how the protest might affect Sweden’s NATO process.

“It’s legal but not proper,” he stressed, adding that it was up to the police to make decisions on Koran burning cases.

Representatives of the Swedish capital’s Grand Mosque said they were disappointed by the police’s decision to grant permission for the gathering on the first day of the Muslim holiday, the mosque’s director and imam, Mahmoud Halfi, said today.

As of May 2022, when Sweden also applied for NATO membership in the wake of the Russian invasion of Ukraine, it is still awaiting the approval of Turkey and Hungary, which have not ratified the Nordic country’s membership.

Turkey maintains that Sweden hosts members of what it calls terrorist organizations on its soil – a charge Sweden denies – and has sought their extradition as a step towards validating its membership. She has also expressed her anger at the anti-Turkish protests that have taken place in the Scandinavian country.

Despite Sweden’s reforms, Ankara accuses it of alleged leniency towards Turkish fighters from the PKK, the Kurdistan Workers’ Party, which is considered a terrorist organization.

Talks on Sweden’s accession to NATO, which are blocked by Turkey, with the participation of representatives of the two countries, will be held in Brussels on July 6, the Secretary General of the Alliance, Jens Stoltenberg, announced today.

Many leaders of the Alliance member states hope that Sweden will join NATO at the NATO summit on July 11 and 12 in Vilnius and are pressing Ankara to lift its veto to achieve this.