TEHRAN, Feb. 4 (Xinhuanet) -- Iranian President Mahmoud Ahmadinejad ordered the government on Saturday to study scrapping contracts with European countries where cartoons of the Prophet Mohammad have been published, the official IRNA news agency reported.

    Ahmadinejad has ordered Commerce Minister Masoud Mirkazemi to set up a committee to "consider and cancel economic contracts with the countries that started the hateful action", said the report.

    The Iranian president also slammed the publication of the cartoons as an "insult" to Islam, saying that the cartoons showed Western media's "rudeness."

    On Friday, former Iranian President Akbar Hashemi Rafsanjani also condemned the cartoons as "loathsome", but called on Muslims to refrain from extremist moves.

    Meanwhile, several Iranian cities, including the capital Tehran, witnessed rallies staged by thousands of angry demonstrators protesting against the cartoons, IRNA said.

    Danish daily Jyllands-Poste published 12 cartoons of the Prophet Mohammad last September, including one depicting the Islamic religion's founder wearing a bomb-shaped turban.

    Over the past few days, the cartoons, which are considered blasphemous by most Muslims, were reprinted in some other European papers, which provoked an outrage in the Muslim world and a boycott of Danish products in most Muslim countries. Enditem