Al-Jazeera asks for an apology for Danish cartoons

Incredible but true. Today the president of Iceland, Ólafur Ragnar Grímsson, was interviewed on Al-Jazeera, and asked to apologize for the publication of the Danish cartoons back in 2005, though the president of Iceland has nothing to do with Denmark.
Iceland was part of Denmark from the 14th century till 1944. Since then the beautiful island has been an independent country.

The interview with Al-Jazeera took place during an official visit by the president to Qatar, where the tv-station has its headquaters.

Here is what president Grimsson said to radio Iceland about the interview (thanks to Vilhjalm Vilhjalmsson who did the translation from Icelandic into Danish):

”In fact he tried to put pressure on me regarding two things. He asked if I would apologize for the behaviour of the Danes, and if I would ask forgiveness for what they did, this insult, this provocation, this disgrace – he used very strong words – that the Danes had demonstrated with the publication of these caricatures. But of course this was not part of my responsibilities. And to tell you the truth I didn’t expect that this case was still alive and such a hot issue that the most important tv-station in the Arab world found it necessary to raise it during a visit by the president of Iceland, and they wanted to discuss it in detail.”