Lars Hedegaard

Maintaining good relations with Turkey is more crucial for Denmark than the recent dispute between the countries that erupted after the release of the suspected shooter of a Danish writer, the country’s foreign minister has said.

The release of the shooting suspect of a right-wing writer and a critic of Islam in Denmark was not a “choice of execution power, but a ruling of the judiciary,” Turkish Foreign Ministry spokesperson Tanju Bilgiç said in a written statement on Oct. 22.