Iran rejects implication of involvement in Trump plot
July 17, 2024
Iran on Wednesday strongly denied reports in the US media implicating Tehran in a plot to assassinate former US President Donald Trump.
US broadcasters CNN and NBC reported on Tuesday that the US Secret Service had recently boosted security around Trump after receiving intelligence from an unnamed "human source" that the current Republican presidential candidate was the target of a potential Iranian plot.
CNN said there was "no indication" the alleged plot was linked to Saturday's shooting at a Trump campaign rally in Pennsylvania, in which the former president was shot in the ear.
How did Tehran react?
Nevertheless, Iranian Foreign Ministry spokesman Nasser Kanani said on Wednesday that Iran "strongly rejects any involvement in the recent armed attack against Trump."
A spokesman for Iran's ambassador to the United Nations called accusations of previous plots to kill the former president "unsubstantiated and malicious."
Tehran has vowed revenge for the 2020 killing of Revolutionary Guards commander Qassem Soleimani in a US drone strike outside Baghdad airport in neighboring Iraq, for which it holds Trump responsible as US President and Commander-in-Chief of the Armed Forces at the time.
Foreign Ministry spokesman Kanani said that Iran remains "determined to pursue legal action against Trump for his direct role in the crime of assassinating" General Soleimani.
The UN mission spokesman said that Trump "must be prosecuted and punished in a court of law," stressing it "has chosen the legal path to bring him to justice."
A spokesman for the US Secret Service said the agency constantly receives new information about threats and reacts to them accordingly, but declined to comment on the reports.
mf/rmt (AFP, dpa, Reuters)