The Ministry for Foreign Affairs of Finland urged on Friday Finnish embassy staff abroad to be on guard and step up security after the attack on the Danish embassy in Jakarta, Indonesia.

The attack on the Danish embassy in Jakarta was carried out by people angered by Danish daily Jyllands-Posten's caricatures of the Prophet Muhammad.

The cartoons have sparked widespread anger among Muslims, whose religious convention forbids the publication of any likeness of the prophet.

With very few exceptions, all the media that have published the images to date have been European.

Finland has not been directly threatened, the ministry's security chief Erkki Vaatainen said. But the attacks have targeted the Nordic countries.

Finnish embassies share buildings with other Nordic countries or with Denmark in Jakarta, Ramallah and Berlin.

The situation is being followed and Finnish embassies had been asked to report local developments, he added.

The Ministry for Foreign Affairs of Finland has also asked on Friday Finnish people to be cautious when they travel to Egypt, Iran, Oman, Kuwait, Yemen, Saudi-Arabia and Israel.

Finnish Foreign Minister Erkki Tuomioja said on Wednesday that Denmark should have responded more quickly and paid better attention to Muslim outrage over caricatures of the Prophet Muhammad.

In an interview with Finnish TV, Tuomioja said that governments could apologize if a religious group was offended.

Source: Xinhua