Iran's supreme leader calls U.S. accusations meaningless

By Hashem Kalantari | Reuters – 1 hr 45 mins ago
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TEHRAN (Reuters) - Iran's Supreme Leader Ayatollah Ali Khamenei said on Saturday U.S. accusations that two Iranians planned to assassinate the Saudi Arabian ambassador to Washington were "meaningless," state TV reported.
"A meaningless and nonsensical accusation has been raised against a few Iranians in America, which was made into an excuse to present the Islamic Republic as a supporter of terrorism," Khamenei told a crowd in the western province of Kermanshah.
"It didn't work, it won't work," he said.
Khameni, who is on a nine-day tour of the province, said the west repeatedly made unfounded accusations against Iran.
"They undertake such conspiracies on a regular basis ... to no avail," he said.
"They say we want to isolate Iran, (but) it's they who have isolated themselves."
Iran's English-language Press TV quoted Foreign Ministry spokesman Ramin Mehmanparast as saying the U.S. allegations were "untrue and baseless."
"It is a comedy show fabricated by America," he said. The relationship between Iran and Saudi Arabia was based on "mutual respect" and could not be harmed by "fabricating such baseless claims."
U.S. authorities say they broke up a plot to bomb the Israeli and Saudi Arabian embassies in Washington and assassinate the Saudi ambassador.
The alleged plotters were identified as Manssor Arbabsiar and Gholam Shakuri -- both originally from Iran -- in a criminal complaint unsealed in federal court in New York City.
The United States has said it held rare direct contacts with Iran over the allegations. An Iranian news agency quoted an Iranian official at the U.N. as denying that.
"I will again confirm that we did meet with the Iranians," State Department spokeswoman Victoria Nuland said on Friday.
"They know that very well, and any efforts on their part to deny it speaks again to how truthful they are about any of these sorts of matters."
IRAN-SAUDI TENSION
Political tension between Iran and Saudi Arabia has been increasing since Saudi forces intervened in March to help Bahrain's Sunni rulers crush pro-reform demonstrations backed by the Shi'ite majority.
Iran and the United State are at odds over Tehran's disputed nuclear program, which Washington and its allies say is a cover to build bombs.
Tehran denies this, saying it needs nuclear technology to generate electricity to meet its booming domestic need. The United States and Israel, which Iran refuses to recognize, have not ruled out military action if diplomacy fails to resolve the row with Iran.
(Reporting By Hashem Kalantari; editing by Andrew Roche)


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Iran: US plot allegations resemble Iraq WMD claims

17 Oct 2011 21:58
Source: Reuters // Reuters

* Ahmadinejad says assassination plot a U.S. lie

* Aimed to create rift between Iran and Saudi Arabia

* Obama pushing for more sanctions on Iran (Recasts, adds more quotes)

By Robin Pomeroy

TEHRAN, Oct 17 (Reuters) - President Mahmoud Ahmadinejad said on Monday U.S. allegations of an Iranian assassination plot resembled its claims of weapons of mass destruction that formed the basis for the 2003 invasion of Iraq, and would prove to be equally untrue.

Ahmadinejad said Washington had fabricated the plot of an Iranian seeking to kill Saudi Arabia's ambassador to Washington in order to cause a rift between Tehran and Saudi Arabia and dominate the oil-rich Gulf.

"In the past the U.S. administration claimed there were weapons of mass destruction in Iraq. They said it so strongly, they offered and presented documentations and everyone said 'yes, we believe in you, we buy it'," Ahmadinejad said in a live interview on Al Jazeera television.
"Now is everyone asking them, were those claims true? Did they find any weapon of mass destruction in Iraq? They fabricated a bunch of papers. Is that a difficult thing to do?

"The truth will be revealed ultimately and there will be no problem for us at that time," Ahmadinejad said.




U.S. President Barack Obama hopes the foiled alleged plot will lead to tighter sanctions against Iran -- already under several rounds of U.N. measures over its nuclear programme -- and repeated that all options are on the table to deal with the Islamic republic -- a tacit threat of possible military action.

When asked whether he thought Iran and the United States were on an inevitable "collision course" towards military conflict, Ahmadinejad replied: "I don't think so.

"I think that there are some people in the U.S. administration who want this to happen but I think there are wise people in the U.S. administration who know they shouldn't do such a thing."

Nevertheless, the commander of the Iranian army ground forces said his troops were "fully prepared and ready to give a quick response to any aggression on Iran's soil".

"Today America is too unsteady to even think about launching an attack on Iran," Ahmad Reza Pourdastan told the semi-official Fars news agency.

HEINOUS

Saudi Arabia, Iran's main rival in the Gulf and with close ties with Washington, requested the United Nations look into what it called the "heinous conspiracy" and Secretary-General Ban Ki-moon said on Monday he had passed correspondence about the affair to the Security Council.

Ahmadinejad called on Saudis not to fall for a U.S. strategy which he said aimed to divide and conquer the Gulf.

"If the U.S. administration is under the impression that by doing this it can create conflict between us and Saudi Arabia then I have to say the U.S. administration is sorely mistaken.

"The U.S. administration is not interested in Iran or in Saudi Arabia. They see their interests in having a dispute between Iran and Saudi Arabia -- they want to dominate our region," he said.

Iran's relations with Saudi Arabia have been strained by the events of the "Arab Spring" as each tries to assert its position in the region amid a welter of sectarian and geo-political rivalries.

Even before the Arab uprisings began, a leaked U.S. cable published on WikiLeaks said Saudi King Abdullah had urged the United States to "cut off the head of the snake" by launching military strikes to destroy Iran's nuclear programme.

The plot furore appears to have killed any chance of a rapid return to talks between Tehran and world powers concerned about its nuclear programme , but Foreign Minister Ali Akbar Salehi said Iran would examine the allegations.

"We are prepared to examine any issue, even if fabricated, seriously and patiently, and we have called on America to submit to us any information in regard to this scenario," he was quoted as saying by the official IRNA news agency. (Editing by Mark Heinrich)


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