TEHRAN: Iranian atomic energy chief Ali Akbar Salehi said on Wednesday that the assassination of a top nuclear scientist was a warning from the West ahead of new talks on Tehran’s programme.
“These wicked people wanted to show their hideous side which demonstrates their carrot and stick policy in the run-up to the new nuclear talks,” state television’s website quoted Salehi as saying.
He was speaking at the funeral of Majid Shahriari, the scientist who was killed by unidentified bombers in Tehran on Monday.
Salehi did not specify the country he held responsible for the murder but other officials have pointed the finger at Iran’s arch-foes Israel and the United States.
Iran’s chief nuclear negotiator Saeed Jalili, who is to head his country’s delegation to the talks with the major powers in Geneva next week, hit out at Western governments as he joined the mourners.
“They used all the capabilities at their disposal, like passing resolutions, imposing sanctions and piling on political pressure but they did not gain anything,” state television’s website quoted him as saying.
“Today they have resorted to assassination, which shows their desperation and the dead end they have reached.”
Like hardline President Mahmoud Ahmadinejad on Tuesday, Jalili said that UN Security Council member states shared responsibility for the murder as they had named Iranian nuclear scientists in a blacklist contained in sanctions resolutions.
“This is a big scandal for the UN Security Council, when the terrorists execute its resolution and the list issued by the Council resembles the list the terrorists have,” he said.
On Tuesday, Ahmadinejad threatened legal action against the council’s five permanent members – Britain, China, France, Russia and the United States – if there is any further act of violence against Iranian scientists.
“As God is my witness, if this happens again, we will sue each permanent member of the United Nations Security Council,” Ahmadinejad said.
“You are wrong. We attribute these crimes to those who passed the resolution against us, since they mentioned the names of our scientists in it.”
