Ibrahim Kalin, the spokesperson of the president of Turkey, stated that European countries should take measures to protect the Quran and not defend themselves behind freedom of speech to justify their inaction in this regard.

"Freedom of speech cannot be used as an excuse to justify, to silence that disgrace, as well as to insult, debase, blaspheme, and attack sacred values. Europe should take measures to prevent such attacks," Kalin said on the air of TV-24.

On January 21, the leader of the Danish Stream Kurs anti-Islamic party, Rasmus Paludan, burned the Quran—the central religious text of Islam—near the Turkish embassy in the Swedish capital, Stockholm. And on January 23, the same action took place in the Netherlands—in The Hague.