TEHRAN -- Adviser to Iran’s negotiating team in Vienna talks has reacted to reports of attack on Salaman Rushdie, and assassination attempt against John Bolton, saying they are odd news.
“I won’t be shedding tears for a writer who spouts endless hatred & contempt for Muslims & Islam. A pawn of empire who poses as a Postcolonial novelist,” Marandi tweeted.
“But, isn’t it odd that as we near a potential nuclear deal, the U.S. makes claims about a hit on Bolton... and then this happens?” he added.
Rushdie was on a ventilator after the attack during a literary event in New York state on Friday, more than 30 years after he went into hiding following late founder of the Islamic Republic Imam Khomeini’s fatwa.
“Bravo to this courageous and duty-conscious man who attacked the apostate and depraved Salman Rushdie in New York,” wrote the Persian daily Kayhan.
“Let us kiss the hands of the one who tore the neck of the enemy of God with a knife,” it added.
Another Tehran-based daily, Iran, said that the “neck of the devil” had been “cut by a razor”.
The U.S. Justice Department claimed Wednesday that it had indicted an Iranian national over allegations he had offered to pay an individual in the United States $300,000 to kill former White House national security adviser John Bolton.
Iran dismissed the allegations as “fiction”.
Bolton has been a staunch supporter of the assassination of the top Iranian general. He also endorses the anti-Iran terrorist group, Mujahedin Khalq Organization (MKO), which is infamous for fabricating scenarios in Europe and the U.S. to incriminate Iranian officials.
“Fabricating stories around a politically bankrupt element, a known terrorist & a coup plotter against independent states, is a U.S. deceptive bid to escape from int’l responsibilities,” Iran’s Foreign Ministry spokesman Nasser Kanaani wrote in a post on his Twitter account Friday.
“Such fanfares won’t whitewash U.S. regime’s image, but makes Iranians & the world more resentful of it,” he added.