Swedish Prime Minister Fredrik Reinfeldt has invited ambassadors from Muslim countries to a meeting Friday to discuss freedom of speech and freedom of religion, a spokesman said Thursday.

The meeting at the cabinet offices would likely gather some 15 or 20 people, Oscar Hallen said, adding that the meeting was part of the "ongoing dialogue" the government was engaged in.

A regional newspaper last month published a caricature of Islam's Prophet Mohammed depicted as a dog, along with an editorial on freedom of speech and religion, to criticism by Muslims and others in and outside Sweden.

The Nerikes Allehanda newspaper on Thursday published an Arabic translation of the editorial on its website, www.na.se. It earlier published an English translation under the headline "The Right to Ridicule a Religion".

Reinfeldt on Tuesday visited the main mosque in Stockholm and met with members of the Muslim Council of Sweden.

Reinfeldt later issued a statement repeating his view that "Sweden is a country where people of different faiths can live together, side by side."

Hallen said Reinfeldt was likely to touch on that issue again, adding that the premier had taken the initiative to the meeting.

The Swedish stance differs from neighbouring Denmark where Prime Minister Anders Fogh Rasmussen declined to meet with Muslim ambassadors who wanted to protest against the September 2005 publication of 12 caricatures of Mohammed in a Danish newspaper.

The publication later triggered angry protests in many Muslim countries in January and February 2006. dpa lsm sc