Danish embassy staff left Baghdad, says Iraqi foreign ministry spox

ERBIL (Kurdistan 24) – The Iraqi Ministry of Foreign Affairs announced on Monday that all the diplomats and staff of the Danish embassy have left Baghdad.

This news comes following an attempt to storm the diplomatic post after radicals in the Nordic country recently set a copy of the Quran and Iraqi flag on fire outside the Middle Eastern country’s embassy.

Spokesperson Ahmed al-Sahaf on Monday told the Iraqi News Agency that the embassy staff left Baghdad two days ago, without elaborating further details on what prompted the departure.

The evacuation comes as hundreds of protestors attempted to storm the Danish embassy in Baghdad to protest the burning of the Quran by radicals in the Nordic country a day earlier. 

The Danish Refugee Council (DRC), a humanitarian NGO, on Saturday, came under "armed attack" in southern Basra province without causing any casualties. 

Read More: Danish Refugee Council’s premises attacked in Basra

Similarly, another Quran burning incident took place in Copenhagen by a group of Danish radicals on Monday, drawing Baghdad's condemnation. 

A member of the Iraqi diaspora community, known as Salwan Momika, for the second time in less than a month last week, desecrated a copy of the Quran and Iraqi flag in Stockholm outside the Iraqi embassy, triggering the rapture of diplomatic ties between the two countries.

The Swedish embassy in Baghdad was stormed and set on fire twice in a month by angry protestors in reaction to desecrating the Quran, which was kicked and stomped on by Momika, a former member of one of the Iran-backed militia groups in Iraq.

The Iraqi premier on Monday met with members of the diplomatic missions in Baghdad to reassure them that the security forces would not allow similar attacks to happen on diplomatic posts. Iraq has been slammed for its failure in protecting the Swedish embassy.