Iranian MP: Linking assassination plots to nuclear talks futile

Javad Karimi Ghoddosi, a member of the Iranian Parliament’s Foreign Policy and National Security Committee, told Iranian Labor News Agency (ILNA) that “Israel does not need to bother to level such accusations against Iran, as it can rely on the influential pro-Israel lobbyists at the White House.”

The remark comes days after the US Justice Department claimed that Iran had plotted to kill former White House national security adviser John Bolton in retaliation for the assassination of top Iranian commander Lieutenant General Qassem Soleimani at Baghdad International Airport in 2020.

It also comes amid allegations that Iran was involved in a recent attack on anti-Islam blasphemous novelist Salam Rushdie by a US-born man in New York, a claim Iranian officials have rejected.

“What happened in New York was the execution of the verdict against Salman Rushdie’s apostasy by a young man born in the US without any affiliation with any organization or party,” Ghoddosi said.

Rushdie touched angered Muslims across the world by writing his sacrilegious novel the Satanic Verses in 1988.

The Iranian parliamentarian also said if Iran decides to avenge for the assassination of the symbolic anti-terror commander, General Soleimani, blamed on Israel and the US, it does not need to deploy agents to the US, as there are ‘fervent’ volunteers who would accomplish the mission without orders from Iran.