US WARNS IRAN AFTER FRANCE ALLEGES TEHRAN WAS COMPLICIT IN BOMB PLOT
▶ France has no doubt Iran’s intelligence ministry was behind a June plot to bomb a Paris rally
The United States, which has been intensifying pressure on Iran, has issued a new warning after Paris accused Tehran’s intelligence agency of a bomb plot.
“France taking strong action against failed Iranian terrorist plot in Paris – Tehran needs to know this outrageous behaviour will not be tolerated,” the White House’s National Security Council tweeted.
State Department spokeswoman Heather Nauert told reporters the incident reinforced the fact Iran was “the world’s top sponsor of terrorism”.
France said on Tuesday it was freezing the assets of two suspected Iranian intelligence operatives over an alleged plot to bomb a rally in Paris three months ago.
French intelligence services concluded that Iran’s deputy minister and director general of intelligence, Saeid Hashemi Moghadam, ordered the failed bomb plot in Paris.
Assadollah Assadi, an Iranian diplomat also accused of masterminding the plot against the National Council of Resistance of Iran is thought to have supplied explosives for the attack.
Both men have had their assets frozen.
Iran’s ministry of security and intelligence is controlled by Iran’s supreme leader Ayatollah Khamenei, the regime’s most senior religious figure.
The targeted event was being held by the armed opposition group the People’s Mujahedin of Iran (MEK), which Tehran considers a terrorist group but which western powers have removed from its blacklists.
Iran immediately denied any involvement, as it did in July when the MEK accused it of being responsible.
The opposition group has several high-profile backers, including US President Donald Trump’s lawyer Rudy Giuliani.
Police arrested six people in separate raids in Belgium, France and Germany after the plot was uncovered.
The incident comes after Mr Trump pulled out of an international agreement on curbing Iran’s nuclear programme, defying allies, including France, who say the deal is working.
The Trump administration has vowed to curtail Iranian influence and criticised the Europeans for seeking to evade impending US sanctions on transactions with Iran.
European officials, and the administration of former president Barack Obama, pointed to divisions in Iran’s government and hoped to strengthen moderates such as President Hassan Rouhani over elements in the security and clerical establishments that are deeply hostile to the West.
The US considers Iran the world’s biggest state sponsor of terrorism because of its links with several armed groups, particularly the Hezbollah militia in Lebanon and Hamas in the Palestinian territories, as well as networks in Iraq and Yemen.
France had warned Tehran to expect a robust response to the thwarted bombing and diplomatic relations were becoming increasingly strained.
French President Emmanuel Macron and Foreign Minister Jean-Yves Le Drian spoke to their Iranian counterparts about the issue at the UN General Assembly after demanding explanations over Iran’s role.
An internal French foreign ministry memo in August told diplomats not to travel to Iran, Reuters revealed, citing the Villepinte bomb plot and a toughening of Iran’s position towards the West.
Paris has also suspended nominating a new ambassador to Iran and has not responded to Tehran nominations for diplomatic positions in France.
The deterioration of relations with France could have wider implications for Iran. France has been one of the strongest advocates of salvaging the 2015 nuclear deal, under which Tehran agreed to curbs on its nuclear programme in return for a lifting of economic sanctions.
European allies have pledged to keep the deal alive, with plans for a mechanism to let firms skirt the US sanctions as they do business with Iran.
The Trump administration has said it expects renewed sanctions to hurt the Iranian economy hard, particularly its oil exports.
Mr Trump and Iranian President Hassan Rouhani faced off at the UN last month, with Mr Rouhani denouncing leaders with “xenophobic tendencies resembling a Nazi disposition”.