Qassemi urges French officials to be realistic about Iran

Iran’s Foreign Ministry spokesman Bahram Qassemi, in a statement, urged French officials to be realistic about the Islamic Republic after Paris seized Iranian assets.

The French government said, in a statement, on Tuesday that it seized assets belonging to Iran’s intelligence services and two Iranian nationals.

In July, an Iranian diplomat was arrested in Germany and two other individuals were detained in Belgium, over allegations of plotting a bomb attack on the meeting of the notorious anti-iran terrorist group, the Mujahedin Khalq Organization (MKO) in Paris.

US President Donald Trump’s lawyer, Rudy Giuliani, and several former European and Arab ministers had attended the meeting.

Qassemi called the issue a plot hatched by the terrorist MKO aimed at damaging historic relations between Iran and Europe and in line with the goals of the US and Israeli regime, the Foreign Ministry’s official website reported.

Rejecting the accusations leveled against Tehran, Qassemi “strongly” protested the arrest of the Iranian diplomat Assadollah Assadi and called for his immediate release.

On Monday, a court in southern Germany ruled the Iranian diplomat could be extradited to Belgium.

In July, Iran’s Foreign Minister Mohammad Javad Zarif said the claims about the Iranian diplomat constitute a “sinister false flag ploy.”

Zarif said, “How convenient: Just as we embark on a presidential visit to Europe, an alleged Iranian operation and its ‘plotters’ arrested.”

The top Iranian diplomat emphasized that the Islamic Republic “unequivocally condemns all violence and terror anywhere, and is ready to work with all concerned to uncover what is a sinister false flag ploy.”

Iranian President Hassan Rouhani visited Switzerland in July. Switzerland was the first leg of Rouhani’s European tour, which also took him to Austria.