Iran denies plot to kill Saudi ambassador

IRAN’S President Mahmoud Ahmadinejad has dismissed US accusations that Iranian government agents plotted to kill the Saudi ambassador in the United States.

“Iran is a civilised nation and doesn’t need to resort to assassination,” Mr Ahmadinejad said. “Terror belongs to you.”

Two men, including a member of Iran’s special foreign actions unit known as the Quds Force, have been charged in New York federal court with conspiring to kill the Saudi diplomat, Adel Al-Jubeir. Iranian officials have consistently denied the allegations since they first emerged last week.

Mr Ahmadinejad’s statements, and similar remarks by Supreme Leader Ayatollah Ali Khamenei, are the first made by the country’s two highest leaders.

Mr Khamenei, who has the final say on all state matters in Iran, said the US seeks to bring greater pressure on Iran through making unsubstantiated claims.

“They (Americans) conduct such conspiracies against us frequently, which are all useless and ineffective. They say that they want to isolate Iran, but they have become isolated themselves,” Mr Khamenei said. “By attributing an absurd and meaningless accusation to a few Iranians, they tried . . . to show that Iran is a supporter of terrorism . . . This conspiracy didn’t work and won’t work.”

In a formal statement, the Iranian government said it has no connection to Manssor Arbabsiar, the man arrested in the alleged plot.

“Unilaterally announcing accusations without showing documentation and creating a media wave against Iran is in no way compatible with legal logic, and can only be a purely media and political show,” it said.

President Barack Obama said the US will support all of its allegations that Iran was directly involved in a plot to kill Mr Al-Jubeir.

Manssor Arbabsiar, who is in custody in New York, is a 56-year-old naturalised US citizen who also had an Iranian passport. In May 2011, the criminal complaint says, he approached someone he believed to be a member of the vicious Mexican narco-terror group, Los Zetas, for help with an attack on a Saudi embassy. The man he approached turned out to be an informant for US drug agents, it says.