Iran recalls envoy from Denmark over cartoon row

The Dawn:

Iran said on Sunday it had recalled its ambassador to Denmark over the publication of cartoons depicting Islam's Prophet Mohammad (SAW).

"Iran has summoned its ambassador in Denmark to Tehran," Foreign Ministry spokesman Hamid Reza Asefi told a news conference. "Freedoms should be accompanied by responsibility."

Denmark's largest newspaper Jyllands-Posten ran 12 cartoons last September, including one of the Prophet with a turban resembling a bomb.

Muslims find depicting the Prophet offensive and the publication of the cartoons has sparked anger across the Islamic world. The cartoons have been reprinted in Bulgaria, France, Germany, Italy, Jordan, Spain, Switzerland, Hungary, New Zealand, Norway and Poland.

Iran's culture ministry warned it may ban reporters from publications that have printed the cartoon.

"If the newspapers that printed the cartoons do not apologise to Muslims, the activities of their reporters will be banned in Iran," Mohammad Hossein Khoshvaght, director of foreign media at Iran's culture ministry, told Reuters. READ MORE

Oil giant Iran said on Saturday it was forming a committee to review trade ties with the countries that printed the cartoons. Demonstrators in Iran took to the streets on Friday denouncing the act.