Iran rebuts claim of Trump assassination plot as ‘totally unfounded’
Iran’s Foreign Ministry on Saturday described as “totally unfounded” US accusations of a plot by Tehran to assassinate US president-elect Donald Trump.
The Foreign Ministry “rejects allegations that Iran is implicated in an assassination attempt targeting former or current American officials,” spokesman Esmaeil Baghaei said in a statement, after US prosecutors announced charges over the alleged plot.
A criminal complaint filed in federal court in New York City alleges that an unnamed official in Iran’s Islamic Revolution Guards Corps (IRGC) instructed a contact to develop a plan to surveil and ultimately kill the businessman-turned-politician.
Baghaei said the repetition of such claims at this juncture is “a malicious conspiracy by Zionist and anti-Iranian circles aimed at further complicating the issues between the United States and Iran.”
It came after Trump was declared the winner of the presidential election on Wednesday. On July 13, Trump survived an assassination attempt, suffering only minor injury to his ear.
In August, Iran dismissed having any connection with a Pakistani individual allegedly arrested in the United States and charged with being behind a foiled plot to assassinate US politicians.
The US, under then-president Trump, unilaterally withdrew in 2018 from a nuclear accord signed in 2015 with Iran and imposed a series of draconian sanctions on the Islamic Republic.
Trump also admitted to having ordered the assassination of Iran’s legendary anti-terror commander Gen. Qassem Soleimani in a US drone strike near Baghdad airport on January 3, 2020.