Tehran, Iran ? The Iranian government on Sunday rejected an accusation by Secretary of State Condoleezza Rice that it has fanned violent protests over caricatures of Islam’s Prophet Muhammad and demanded an apology, saying that could reduce growing tension.

Rice, meanwhile, said Iran and Syria should be urging their citizens to remain calm – not encouraging violence like last week’s attacks on Western diplomatic missions in Tehran, Damascus and Beirut, Lebanon. Nearly a dozen people also were killed in protests in Afghanistan.

“If people continue to incite it, it could spin out of control,” she said Sunday on ABC’s “This Week” as furor mounted over the cartoons of Islam’s most revered figure.

The drawings have been reprinted in several publications in Europe, the United States and elsewhere.

Iranian Foreign Ministry spokesman Hamid Reza Asefi said an apology from Rice and Denmark could help.

“What happened was a natural reaction,” Asefi said, adding that “an apology could alleviate the tension.”

He spoke as one of Iran’s largest newspapers opened a contest today seeking caricatures of the Holocaust. Hamshahri newspaper said it wanted to test whether the West extends its principle of freedom of expression to the Nazi genocide as it did to the cartoons of Islam’s prophet.