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Iran plotted to kill separatist leader in Denmark
Danish authorities revealed yesterday that Iranian intelligence agents attempted to assassinate an Iranian opposition leader in Denmark.
The alleged attack was intended to target the leader of the Danish branch of the Arab Struggle Movement for the Liberation of Ahwaz (ASMLA), a group that seeks a separate state for ethnic Arabs in the Iranian province of Khuzestan. A Norwegian citizen of Iranian descent was arrested on 21 October on suspicion of helping an unspecified Iranian intelligence service “to act in Denmark” and of alleged involvement in the assassination plot, Danish security service chief Finn Borch Andersen said.
“An Iranian intelligence agency has planned an assassination on Danish soil. This is completely unacceptable. In fact, the gravity of the matter is difficult to describe. That has been made crystal clear to the Iranian ambassador in Copenhagen today,” Danish Foreign Minister Anders Samuelsen said in a statement.
Danish Prime Minister Lars Lokke Rasmussen expressed his concern over the incident via Twitter, stating that “it is totally unacceptable that Iran or any other foreign state plans assassinations on Danish soil,” reiterating that “further actions against Iran will be discussed in the EU”. After a meeting with Prime Minister Theresa May in Oslo, Rasmussen said: “In close collaboration with UK and other countries we will stand up to Iran.”
Iran denies the Danish claims and Iranian Foreign Ministry spokesman Bahram Qasemi said the allegations were intended to harm the developing relations between Iran and Europe. Iran’s ambassador to the UK, Hamid Baeidinejad, said the allegations were “peculiarly timed” given the growing Iran-EU engagement, and said the “US and its regional clients are desperate for any distraction from their moral and political failures”.
Tehran has blamed ASMLA for a terrorist attack on a military parade in the Iranian city of Ahvaz on 22 September that left at least 25 people dead. ASMLA condemned the violence and said it was not involved. On Friday, France expelled an Iranian diplomat over a bomb plot against a rally organised by Iranian opposition groups, diplomatic and security sources said.