Tel aviv: Eli Cohen, the foreign minister of Israel, has warned Tobias Billstrom, the foreign minister of Sweden, that a demonstration that was supposed to take place outside the Israeli embassy in Stockholm on Friday and feature the burning of a Torah book could have harmed relations between the two nations internationally.

In a statement released on Friday, Cohen expressed his horror at the "new threat to burn a Torah book in Sweden" and urged the country's leadership to take action to stop the ongoing threats against religious texts being destroyed in the EU nation.

Later on Friday, Israel National News reported that the demonstration was called off and that the protester had instead set a blank piece of paper on fire as a "symbol of the Swedish system that is empty of hope."

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Before the proposed Torah-burning, Cohen said, "I talked with my friend the Swedish foreign minister and made clear to him that we expect the Swedish government to prevent events like this, which are likely to harm relations between our countries.

Israel's protest follows Swedish authorities' approval of a request from a 50-year-old woman who claimed she wanted to burn a religious text the following day to draw attention to alleged abuses of children's rights.

It is still unknown why she chose to demonstrate with the Torah, the first five books of the Hebrew Bible.

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According to the Israeli news outlet Ynet News, Billstrom responded to Cohen on Friday by saying that burning sacred texts goes against Swedish government values. Additionally, he declared that he would look into any constitutional amendments that might one day forbid such actions.

As previously stated, Stockholm does not endorse the actions but permits them to take place in order to safeguard citizens' rights to free speech and the right to demonstrate.

Around two weeks ago, a person requested permission to burn a Jewish and Christian Bible outside Israel's embassy in Stockholm "as a symbolic gathering for the sake of free speech." This week's proposed demonstration followed that incident.

The Swedish police said at the time that there was a "important distinction" between approving demonstrations and advocating the obliteration of holy texts. According to a statement made earlier this month by Stockholm law enforcement press officer Carina Skagerlind, "the police does not issue permits to burn various religious texts." Permits to hold public gatherings and express opinions are issued by the police.

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That protest did not go forward either, and it was timed to coincide with the burning of a Quran outside Stockholm's biggest mosque in June. Ahmad Alush, a 32-year-old activist, told reporters at the site of the planned demonstration that his intention was only to object to the burning of the Quran, not to destroy Jewish or Christian holy books.