OSLO, Feb. 23 (Xinhua) -- Icelandic President Gudni Johannesson has been forced to clarify his view that pizza topped with pineapple should be outlawed after the topic went viral on social media.
The joke came during a question-and-answer session with students at a high school in northern Iceland last week.
When answering questions about pizza and football, the president expressed his dislike of pineapple on pizzas, saying he'd ban putting the tropical fruit as a pizza topping if only he had the power to make laws.
His anti-pineapple stance quickly made headlines on domestic and overseas media, and Fox News even joked in its report that Gudni "probably isn't very popular in Hawaii right now."
The president's view has also set off a heated debate on Twitter with a new hashtag #pineappleonpizza.
On Tuesday, Gudni responded that he actually liked pineapple, just not on his pizzas.
"I do not have the power to make laws that forbid people to put pineapples on pizza," he wrote on Facebook.
"Presidents should not have unlimited power. I would not want to hold this position if I could pass laws forbidding what I don't like. I would not want to live in such a country," he added.
Gudni, a former history professor, was elected president in June 2016. His informal style has helped him retain high approval ratings after his inauguration in August 2016.
