TEHRAN – Iran on Friday dismissed as “ridiculous” allegations by the occupying regime of Israel’s foreign minister while on a visit to Ankara that the Islamic Republic was planning attacks in Turkey.
“The baseless allegations by the Zionist regime are ridiculous and part of a pre-designed plot to destroy relations between the two Muslim countries,” Foreign Ministry spokesman Saeed Khatibzadeh said in a statement.
The Zionist regime’s foreign minister Yair Lapid on Thursday thanked Turkey for thwarting what he alleged an Iranian assassination plot against its tourists in Istanbul.
Khatibzadeh stressed that Iran would respond forcefully to “assassinations and acts of sabotage by the Zionist regime” but “without threatening the security of civilians and the security of other countries”.
The spokesman recounted how “unfortunately, about a week ago, a psychological operation had been launched to preoccupy the media with fictitious scenarios, using erroneous and tendentious information”.
“It sought to prepare the ground for the blame shifting scenario of the Zionist regime’s foreign minister,” he said.
“The victim playing by this terrorist regime is not believed by anyone but itself, and even if certain parties seem to have a show of support based on fleeting expediency, they know in fact what a dangerous regime they are dealing with,” he added.
Khatibzadeh said, “Our neighbor, Turkey, is well aware of the baseless allegations made by the lying and terrorist Zionist regime and is not expected to remain silent in the face of these divisive allegations.”
“This regime has repeatedly shown how unreliable it is.”
The new scenario, the Iranian spokesman said, is “part of Tel Aviv’s conspiracy to divert Turkish and regional public opinion from the Palestinian cause and the terrorist acts of this child-killing and subversive regime”.
The occupying regime of Israel has been behind a string of sabotage attacks on Iran’s nuclear facilities in recent years, including assassination of several nuclear scientists and military officials.
More recently, member of the Islamic Revolution Guards Corps (IRGC) Colonel Sayyad Khodaei was assassinated outside his home in east Tehran.