New Delhi: Iran on Monday indicated that the January 29 blast near the Israeli embassy was the handiwork of “third parties” who wanted to see a rupture in India-Iranian ties.
On Monday, the Iranian embassy issued a detailed statement, two months after an explosion took place on the evening of January 29, near the Israeli embassy on APJ Abdul Kalam road. The low-intensity IED blast took place when the Indian capital was under heavy security cover due to the beating retreat ceremony that was taking place a few kilometres away.
The reaction from Embassy of Iran also came after Hindustan Times reported that India’s central counter-terrorism agencies have concluded that the “Iranian Quds force was behind the terror plot but that the bomb was planted by a local Indian Shia module”.
The HT article claimed that “deliberate false-flag cyber markers were left by the perpetrators, pointing to the role of the Islamic State, but the counterterror agencies are clear that the blast was part of the asymmetric warfare campaign being carried out by Iran’s Islamic Revolutionary Guard Corps against Israel”.
A letter found at the incident was addressed to Israel’s ambassador to India, Ron Malka, and apparently swore revenge for deaths of Quds Force creator Qassem Soleimani and Iranian nuclear physicist Mohsen Fakhrizadeh.
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The Iranian embassy said that after the blast, there has been an “unfair onslaught and unsubstantiated defamatory accusations against Iran”, adding that it condemned any “act any act which ensues intimidation and fear, disruption of order and security, and jeopardizing the lives and property of the innocent people”.
The statement denied allegations of involvement in the January 29 blast and stated that Iran was ready to “cooperate” in the investigation.
“While respecting the honorable government and authorities of India in their endeavor to thoroughly investigate and probe into the above-mentioned incident in order to identify the orchestrators of such actions and to bring them to justice, this embassy strongly repudiates any unsubstantiated allegations or irresponsible comments in this regard and considers them as steps towards realizing the sinister intentions of the enemies of Iran- India relations. Meanwhile, the Iranian authorities have always expressed their readiness to cooperate with the Indian friends in order to unravel the wicked intentions of the spoilers of bilateral relations.”
The embassy questioned the plausibility of Iran benefitting from such an act when relations between the two countries are growing. It hinted that the perpetrators may have been “third parties” who have been “angry and dissatisfied” with the progress in India-Iran relations.
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“In the current juncture in which the long-standing and cordial relations between the Islamic Republic of Iran and Republic of India is further being boosted and developed in all domains, including in the form of exchange of the two countries’ high rankings political, economic, security and defense delegations, this question deems serious attention whether the said suspicious blast has any benefit for bilateral relations or who would indeed gain from this action?! Is the presumption that this act must have been conducted by third parties who are angry and dissatisfied with the progress in the relations between the governments of Iran and India illogical?”
The Iranian embassy asserted that not only does its culture and history not allow for terror acts, but also that Iran has been victim of terrorism, including the assassination of notable scientists like Fakhrizadeh.
In 2012, the wife of the defence attache of the Israeli embassy was critically injured after a magnetic bomb was stuck to her car.