Saudi Arabia has on Tuesday waded in on the international debate surrounding France’s defence of the right to show cartoons of Prophet Mohammed.

A foreign ministry official in a statement, called the images offensive and said that; “the Kingdom of Saudi Arabia rejects any attempt to link Islam with terrorism and denounces cartoons offensive to Prophet Mohammed or any of the other prophets.’’

Saudi Arabia which is the birthplace of Islam, is the latest Muslim country to express anger over the cartoons, which originally appeared in French satirical magazine Charlie Hebdo.

The right to publish them was recently defended by President Emmanuel Macron however, Egypt’s Al-Azhar University, Sunni Islam’s influential seat of learning, denounced the cartoons, saying the attack on Islam was part of a systematic campaign to use Islam to win political battles.

Calls for boycott of French products have been gaining momentum recently and over the weekend, traders in Jordan, Kuwait and Qatar removed French goods from their stores in response to the calls.

Social media users also shared a list of French brands such as carmakers Peugeot and Renault as well as dairy brands Kiri, Babybel and Danone, calling for people to boycott them.