LONDON, Feb 18: The Danish cartoonist whose work has sparked worldwide furore said on Saturday he does not regret his drawing or its publication.

Kurt Westergaard told Britain’s Herald newspaper that his inspiration for the cartoon — one of a dozen that appeared in a Danish newspaper in September — was ‘terrorism’.

Mr Westergaard, who agreed to answer questions from the newspaper in writing through an intermediary, defended the cartoons on grounds of freedom of expression and the press.

Asked by The Herald if he had anticipated the uproar that the cartoons provoked, replied: “No — No.”

When asked if he regretted drawing the cartoon or its publication, he said simply: “No.”

He said the inspiration for the drawings was: “Terrorism — which gets its spiritual ammunition from Islam.”

He also defended the caricature as ‘a protest against the fact that we perhaps are going to have double standards (in Denmark and western Europe) as for freedom of expression and freedom of the press”.

When asked if he thought his life would ever get back to normal, Mr Westergaard replied: “Now and then I look over my shoulder, but I trust the PET (the Danish secret service). I hope so.”

He added, when asked by The Herald what he thought he had learned from his experience, that ‘the world is always a dangerous place — but what alternatives do we have?

“But: ‘Let us never negotiate out of fear. But let us never fear to negotiate.’ John F Kennedy.”

Jyllands-Posten, the biggest-selling newspaper in Denmark, has apologised for causing offence to Muslims by running the cartoons, though it maintains it was within the law in Denmark to do so. —AFP