Prime Minister Anwar Ibrahim and Turkish President Recep Tayyip Erdogan strongly condemned the recent burnings of the Quran and populist discourse that incites hate speech against Islam.

In a joint statement issued Wednesday after the leaders' meeting in New York on the margins of the 78th United Nations (UN) General Assembly, they also expressed concern over the emergence of a "new form of racism" characterised by xenophobia, negative profiling and stereotyping of Muslims.