Iran on Friday buried a top scientist it said was killed by Israel and the United States as part of a covert campaign against its nuclear programme, as a US-led drive for crippling sanctions ran into opposition, even from allies.
Mostafa Ahmadi Roshan, a deputy director of Iran’s main uranium enrichment plant, was given a funeral service in north Tehran after noon prayers, state media reported.
He and his driver were killed on Wednesday when two men on a motorbike slapped a magnetic bomb on his car while it was stuck in Tehran traffic. Iran’s supreme leader, Ayatollah Ali Khamenei, said the “abominable” and “cowardly” killing was committed “with the planning or support of the intelligence services of the CIA and Mossad,” of the United States and Israel.
He said in a statement his country would “continue with determination” its nuclear activities, which Western governments suspect mask a drive for a weapons capability despite Tehran’s repeated denials. Some media close to Iran’s conservatives have called for “retaliation” against Israeli officials. The Iranian government has demanded that the UN Security Council condemn the “terrorist” killing.
The United States has strongly denied it had anything to do with the assassination, although Defence Secretary Leon Panetta admitted: “We have some ideas as to who might be involved.” The prime suspect is widely seen as Israel, as it was in the murders of three other Iranian scientists in similar circumstances over the past two years. Israel, though, has a policy of not commenting on intelligence matters.
Asked in a CNN interview on Friday if Israel was involved in Wednesday’s assassination, President Shimon Peres said: “Not to the best of my knowledge.” US President Barack Obama spoke with Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu the day after the scientist’s murder to discuss developments in Iran.EU foreign ministers are to meet on January 23 to consider new sanctions including action against the central bank and a proposed ban on Iran oil imports that may be phased in over months to avoid hurting struggling eurozone economies. But Iran’s two main allies on the world stage, Russia and China, have expressed strong criticism of the new Western measures and remain adamantly opposed to any new UN sanctions.
UN N-watchdog to visit Iran
A high-level UN nuclear agency delegation will visit Iran late this month to try to clear up claims of covert weapons activities that have stoked tensions between Tehran and the West, diplomats said Friday. The trip led by International Atomic Energy Agency chief inspector Herman Nackaerts and the agency’s number two Rafael Grossi would last from January 28 through the first week of February, one Western diplomat told AFP. Another envoy also said the visit, two months after an IAEA report on Iran took suspicions to a new level that Tehran is developing nuclear weapons, would “likely” be from January 28, although it was not yet definite. There was also some “ambiguity” on whether the delegation would merely hold talks with Iranian officials or be able to visit sites covered in the IAEA’s bombshell November 8 report, the second diplomat said. “It may be that the Iranians just want a short discussion in Tehran, which would not be what the IAEA is looking for,” the envoy told AFP on condition of anonymity. An IAEA spokesman declined to comment. Iran’s ambassador, Ali Ashgar Soltanieh, who said in December he would hold talks with the IAEA in Vienna this month about a visit, was not immediately available to say any more.
