Quran burning would jeopardise global peace: Nawaz Sharif

ISLAMABAD - Former Pakistan prime minister and Pakistan Muslim League-Nawaz (PML-N) chief Nawaz Sharif Thursday condemned the plans of a US pastor to burn the Quran on the anniversary of the 9/11 terror attack, saying it would “jeopardise global efforts to maintain peace and inter-faith harmony”.

Terry Jones, the pastor at the Dove World Outreach Center in Gainesville, Florida, is planning to conduct an “International Burn a Quran Day” Saturday, despite receiving more than 100 death threats.

“This announcement by a priest is a matter of the highest alarm and runs the danger of risking an already fragile inter-faith harmony and plunging the world deep into religious hatred and intolerance,” Sharif was quoted as saying by Online news agency.

Asking the world community to make an effort to stop the act, the PML-N chief said the announcement by the priest had invited provocation from Muslims across the world.

“All religions of the world show respect to other faiths and their holy books. This is the paramount basis of inter-faith harmony and this must not fall prey to the call of an insane priest who seems hell bent to wreck whatever religious harmony and tolerance persists today,” he said.

If the burning takes place, it would be no less than a tragedy and “seriously jeopardise global efforts to maintain peace and inter-faith harmony”, he said.

The US was now under a tremendous global obligation to use all means to stop such a “horrible crime” against religion and international peace, he said.