TEHRAN (Dispatches) -- Iran's Intelligence Minister Mahmoud Alavi said on Monday claims that Tehran plotted to kill a terrorist in Denmark was an Israeli conspiracy that sought to harm Tehran's relation with the European Union.
Denmark claimed last week that a police operation there in September stemmed from an Iranian plot to kill a terrorist. It said a suspect in the case, a Norwegian citizen of Iranian descent, has denied wrongdoing and was being held in pre-trial custody until Nov. 8.
The operation was linked to a separatist anti-Iran group that Tehran has blamed for a September attack on a military parade in the city of Ahvaz that killed at least 25 people.
Iran has voiced its readiness for all-out cooperation with Norway, Sweden, and Denmark to find the truth behind the alleged assassination plot falsely blamed on Iran, Foreign Ministry spokesman Bahram Qasemi said on Sunday.
Iran’s readiness for cooperation was expressed in a meeting between a senior foreign ministry official and the ambassadors of the three European countries to Tehran, he said.
During the talks, the Iranian official once again dismissed the European allegations leveled against Tehran, describing them as part of the Zionist regime’s plot and clumsy scenarios.
"At the meeting, the Iranian foreign minister’s assistant and director general of European affairs announced that Tehran was ready for all-out cooperation, including in security areas and launch of joint fact-finding investigations, with the respective countries,” Qasemi said.
The official has also laid emphasis on the responsibility borne by Norway, Sweden, and Denmark to confront terrorism, saying sheltering those who have officially claimed responsibility for the recent terror attack in Iran’s Ahvaz is unacceptable.
The official further underlined the need for joint efforts to identify the terrorist elements who have found shelter in Europe, Qasemi said, adding the issue was also raised in phone conversations with foreign ministers of Germany, France, Norway, Sweden and Denmark.