Iran says Israeli footprints found in recent Qur’an desecration

"The Zionist regime's behind-the-scenes hands are visible in the sedition [that featured] affront against the Noble Qur'an," Foreign Ministry spokesman Nasser Kan'ani tweeted on Tuesday.

"Of course, this fact does not reduce the responsibility of the governments that facilitated these acts of profanity, and they (these governments) have to be accountable and act responsibly," he added, referring to the Swedish and Danish governments.

The developments came after a Sweden-based Iraqi refugee, identified as Salwan Momika, desecrated Muslims' holy book. He committed the sacrilegious act first in front of Stockholm's biggest mosque in late June, and for the second time outside the Iraqi Embassy in the same city on Thursday, amid strict protection provided by the Swedish police.

And on Friday, members of an Islamophobic Danish group, called Danske Patrioter, desecrated the Qur'an in front of Iraq’s Embassy in Denmark's capital city of Copenhagen.

Also on Tuesday, the small far-right group set fire to copies of the Qur’an in front of the Egyptian and Turkish Embassies in the Danish capital, in another blasphemous act against the Muslim holy book.

The acts of sacrilege have opened the floodgates of protests across the Muslim world, including in Iran, with all Muslim countries issuing vehement condemnations of the reprehensible profanity.

Kan'ani, meanwhile, advised Stockholm and Copenhagen not to "sacrifice their interests, credit, and reputation for the interests of the Zionist regime."

Earlier in July, Iran's Intelligence Ministry said the Iraqi national, who burnt a copy of the Holy Qur'an in Stockholm, was affiliated with the Israeli Mossad spy agency and engaged in espionage activities against resistance groups.

The ministry said in its statement that Momika was born in Iraq in 1986 and was hired by Mossad in 2019, stressing that his notoriety and criminal records in his home country were “accepted and welcomed by Zionists” at the time.

After being recruited by the Israeli spy agency, the Iraqi man “played a major role in spying on the resistance movement and advancing the project of Iraq's disintegration,” the Intelligence Ministry added.

The ministry underlined that the desecration of the Holy Qur’an by Momika was part of an Israeli project to detract the world's public attention away from the regime’s atrocities against Palestinians in the occupied West Bank, especially in the city of Jenin.

Speaking on Saturday, Sayyed Hassan Nasrallah, leader of the Lebanese resistance movement of Hezbollah, warned that if it was confirmed that the Israeli spy agency was behind the desecration of the Qur'an, it would mean that such sacrilegious acts would continue and would be followed by strong popular and official reactions from the Muslim world.

Upon Iran and Iraq's proposal, the Organization of Islamic Cooperation (OIC) has agreed to hold an extraordinary meeting of the inter-governmental body's foreign minister on July 31, to address the trend of profanity.