Iran urges international community to condemn nuclear scientist’s killing
IRAN’S FOREIGN Minister has blamed Israel for the “terrorist” murder of a nuclear scientist and has urged the international community to condemn the killing.
An Iranian scientist that Israel alleged led the Islamic Republic’s military nuclear programme until its disbanding in the early 2000s was killed in a shootout yesterday, Iran’s state television had said.
Tehran’s Foreign Minister Mohammad Javad Zarif quickly suggested that Israel was behind the attack.
In a tweet Mr Zarif said: “Terrorists murdered an eminent Iranian scientist today.
“This cowardice – with serious indications of Israeli role – shows desperate warmongering of perpetrators.
“Iran calls on int’l communityand especially EU- to end their shameful double standards & condemn this act of state terror.”
Israel declined to immediately comment on the killing of Mohsen Fakhrizadeh, who Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu once mentioned in a news conference saying: “Remember that name.”
Israel has long been suspected of carrying out a series of targeted killings of Iranian nuclear scientists nearly a decade ago.
State TV cited sources confirming the death.
It said it would offer more information shortly.
The semi- official Fars news agency, believed to be close to the country’s Revolutionary Guard, said the attack happened in Absard, a small city just east of the capital, Tehran. It said witnesses heard the sound of an explosion and then machine gun fire.
The attack targeted a car that Mr Fakhrizadeh was in, the agency said.
State television on its website later published a photograph of security forces blocking off the road.