TEHRAN -- Iranian Foreign Minister Muhammad Javad Zarif said Friday the U.S. government is involved in hatching assassination plots against leaders of certain countries while accusing others of kidnapping operations to conceal its criminal acts.
Zarif made the comment in a tweet accompanied by excerpts from the American media indicating the U.S. involvement in the assassination of Haitian President Jovenel Moise and plots for the ouster and targeted killing of Venezuelan President Nicolas Maduro.
Zarif said the assassination plots against the two leaders were hatched by “U.S.-affiliated gunmen” on American soil but the U.S. administration “covers up its criminal ties” by accusing other countries of “a childishly conceived kidnapping operation.”
“U.S.-affiliated gunmen hatch plots on U.S. soil to assassinate leaders in Venezuela & Haiti while U.S. government busily covers up its criminal ties by accusing others of a patently ridiculous, childishly conceived kidnapping operation,” Zarif said.
“Put your house in order before throwing bricks at others,” he added.
The top Iranian diplomat was referring to a recent U.S. claim that the Iranian government plotted to kidnap a blogger based in the United States.
Late Tuesday, the U.S. Justice Department accused what it alleged four Iranian intelligence agents of planning to kidnap Masih Alinejad in her New York home and smuggling her to Iran.
The department claimed that the
alleged agents researched possible ways to move her out of the United States, including hiring a “military-style” speedboat to whisk her from Manhattan and transfer by sea to Venezuela.
Tehran categorically rejected the allegations as “baseless and absurd” and likened them to “Hollywood scenarios.”
The Pentagon was reported by The Washington Post on Thursday that suspects linked to the assassination of the Haitian president had received American military training, raising fresh questions about Washington’s ties to Moise’s death.
The 53-year-old Haitian president was killed in an armed attack at his private residence in the capital Port-au-Prince by a group of gunmen who spoke Spanish and English.
Police in Haiti said the assassination was carried out by a commando unit of 26 Colombian and two American mercenaries identified as James Solages and Joseph Vincent, both from Florida.
The Venezuelan president has on several occasions accused the U.S. government of plotting to oust him through the military invasion of the Latin American country and to assassinate him.
Earlier in the month, Maduro said the chief of U.S. military’s Southern Command Craig Faller and CIA Director William Burns, who recently visited Colombia and Brazil, had come to finish “preparations” for a “violent plan” to assassinate him.
In 2019, Maduro said the administration of former President Donald Trump planned to assassinate him and topple his government.