DAMASCUS, Feb 1: Syria on Wednesday recalled its ambassador from Denmark over the publication of sacrilegious cartoons in a Danish newspaper that have caused uproar in the Muslim world.

The announcement came hours after a telephoned bomb threat against the Danish embassy in Damascus forced staff to evacuate the building while security personnel cordoned off streets and searched the complex. No bomb was found and staff were allowed to return to the embassy after an hour.

Saudi Arabia recalled its ambassador last week while Libya has closed its embassy in the Danish capital.

In Tunis, a meeting of Arab interior ministers called upon the Danish government to punish the newspaper concerned.

“We ask the Danish authorities to take the necessary measures to punish those responsible of this harm and to take action to avoid its repeat”, the ministers said in a statement at the end of two-day meeting to discuss ways of strengthening cooperation against terrorism blamed on radical Muslim groups.

A diplomatic storm has blown up over cartoons that were published in the Danish newspaper, Jyllands-Posten, in September and republished in Norway last month. French paper France Soir and German newspaper Die Welt published the images on Wednesday. Newspapers in the Netherlands, Italy and Spain also reprinted the cartoons.

Danish Prime Minister Anders Fogh Rasmussen has said his government cannot apologise on behalf of independent media that have only exercised their right to free speech, but Jyllands-Posten has already apologised for offending Muslims.

But thousands of Palestinians protested for a second day on Tuesday saying an apology by the newspaper was not enough.

Religious and other opinion leaders in the Muslim world asked for the newspaper to be punished to avoid the publication of a similarly offensive material in future.

DEFENCE DISMISSED: Arab commentators dismissed the argument that Danish traditions of tolerance and respect for press freedom barred the government from taking action against the newspaper.