Iranian Foreign Ministry spokesman Nasser Kan’ani says making a fuss around the fake story of a plot to assassinate former notorious US national security advisor John Bolton will not help Washington whitewash its own crimes.
“Fabricating stories [regarding] a politically bankrupt element, a known terrorist & a coup plotter against independent states, is a US deceptive bid to scape from int’l responsibilities,” Kan’ani wrote in a post on his Twitter account on Friday.
“Such fanfares won’t whitewash US regime’s image, but makes Iranians & the world more resentful of it,” he added.
The US Department of Justice on Wednesday charged a man identified as Shahram Poursafi with trying to arrange the killing of Bolton in retaliation for the US assassination of Iran’s legendary anti-terror commander Lieutenant Gen. Qasem Soleimani in Iraq in January 2020.
In the latest scenario, Poursafi has been cited as a member of Iran’s Islamic Revolution Guards Corps who attempted to pay individuals in the United States in October 2021 a reward of $300,000 to carry out the plot in either Washington, DC, or Maryland.
Bolton has been a staunch supporter of the assassination of the top Iranian general. He also endorses the anti-Iran terrorist group, Mujahedin-e-Khalq Organization (MKO), which is infamous for fabricating scenarios in Europe and the US to incriminate Iranian officials.
General Soleimani, commander of the Quds Force of Iran’s IRGC, and his Iraqi trenchmate Abu Mahdi al-Muhandis, the second-in-command of Iraq’s Popular Mobilization Units (PMU), were martyred along with their companions in a US drone strike on January 3, 2020.
The two noted anti-terror commanders were tremendously respected and admired across the region for their instrumental role in fighting and decimating the Daesh Takfiri terrorist group in the region, particularly in Iraq and Syria. The US strike near the Baghdad International Airport was authorized by then-president Donald Trump.
In an earlier reaction to alleged plots against Bolton, Kan’ani said on Wednesday that “The spinning of these threadbare and baseless fictions is becoming a recurring custom in the American judicial and propaganda system.”
“Continuing their endless accusations against the Islamic Republic of Iran and their failed Iranophobic policy, the American judicial authorities, in a new yarn spinning, have raised accusations without providing valid evidence and necessary documentation,” he said.
“Such baseless claims are made with political motives and aims and in fact amount to forward escape, creating propaganda ruse and especially escaping the responsibility of responding to numerous terrorist crimes that the American government has either directly participated in, such as the cowardly assassination of General Martyr Soleimani, or like the terrorist crimes committed by the Zionist regime and terrorist groups like Daesh, they have been committed with the support of America,” the Iranian spokesman added.
Kan’ani also warned Washington against any action against Iranian citizens under the pretext of those “ridiculous” accusations, emphasizing that Tehran reserves the right to take any action within the framework of international law to defend the rights of its government and citizens.