TEHRAN, Feb 4: Iranian President Mahmoud Ahmadinejad on Saturday ordered the cancellation of economic contracts with countries where the media have carried cartoons lampooning Islam, the ISNA news agency reported.

The report said the hardline president had ordered the creation of an official body to respond to the cartoons, saying the regime ‘must revise and cancel economic contracts with the countries that started this repulsive act and those that followed them’.

The presidential decree also condemned the ‘the insult by certain Western media of the Holy Prophet (PBUH) which shows the hatred towards Islam and Muslims of the Zionists who govern these countries and the absence of serious action by the leaders of these countries’.—AFP