Hundreds of supporters of Iraqi prominent Shiite cleric Moqtada al-Sadr rallied on Sunday in protest against what they described as an insult against their cleric by the Bahraini foreign minister.

The demonstrators carried flowers, al-Sadr's pictures and banners saying "From al-Sadr to the people of Bahrain, we carry these flowers to you" and "Iraqis protest the blatant infringement by Bahrain against Iraqi leader Moqtada al-Sadr."

"We want Bahrain to respect religious symbols and not to insult them, and we give these flowers to the brotherly Bahraini people," some protestors, who held al-Sadr's picture in one hand and a flower in the other, told Xinhua near the Bahraini embassy in Baghdad.

Demonstrations also took place in the holy Shiite city of Najaf in central Iraq as well as in the southern city of Basra.

Late on Saturday, Bahraini Foreign Minister Khalid bin Ahmed Al Khalifa tweeted offensively against al-Sadr, who earlier issued a statement calling for the "rulers of Yemen, Bahrain and Syria to step down immediately and to let the United Nations hold elections away from interventions."

Al-Sadr's statement was originally meant to call for not dragging Iraq into U.S.-Iran conflict and made 10 proposals including closing the U.S. embassy in Iraq.

Earlier, the Iraqi foreign ministry denounced in a statement the Bahraini foreign minister's remarks, saying "the words of the Bahraini foreign minister, who is representing Bahraini diplomacy, are offensive to Moqtada al-Sadr with bad words and are totally unacceptable in diplomatic norms."