The White House has termed the burning of the Quran as "un-American" while stressing that "absolutely nothing" justified the killings of UN personnel in Afghanistan following protests over the destruction of the holy text.
"We absolutely condemn the burning of a holy text. We think it's un-American and inappropriate," White House Press Secretary Jay Carney told reporters.
He said "absolutely nothing" justifies the kind of violence that took the lives of workers at the United Nations in Mazar-i-Sharif.
"Our interest is not in elevating somebody whose behaviour is inappropriate and un-American, or does not represent what we believe are America's values," Carney said when asked about the radical Florida pastor, Terry Jones, who was responsible for the incident.
"Our focus, however, is also on condemning the heinous acts that took the lives of UN workers in Afghanistan," he said.
Meanwhile, the Council on American-Islamic Relations (CAIR) in a statement Monday said that Jones should be "ignored".
Ibrahim Hooper, CAIR spokesman, said his Muslim advocacy group tried to ignore Jones because he has a tiny following and is not representative of mainstream American thought.
"We believe he's just in the mode of pure publicity seeking. We've purposely downplayed it as much as possible," he said.
Hooper denounced the violence as "a completely
inappropriate reaction" to the pastor's act.
"Everybody has freedom of speech. In this case, even freedom to do stupid and reprehensible things. But everybody also has the responsibility to act in a way that doesn't harm others or doesn't lead to the harm of others," he added.
Protests over the burning of the Quran continued for the fourth day Monday with more than 1,000 Afghans taking to the streets.