European security officials claim to have intercepted communications showing that an Iranian diplomat, who was charged in an attempted Paris terror attack last summer, coordinated the attempt with associates in Iran, The Independent reported Tuesday.
According to the report, a “well-placed Western official” described the communications as text messages or chats that had been gathered by European intelligence agencies.
“Time and again, Europe has shown its weakness to Tehran. I think the Iranian regime is doing what it has been doing for quite some time,” Paulo Casaca, a former Portuguese member of the European Parliament, told German broadcaster Deutsche Welle with regard to Iran’s continued development of ballistic missiles and its attempted assassinations of political opponents on foreign soil.
“Last July, when the security officials in Belgium, France, and Germany averted a terrorist attempt to bomb a major gathering of Iranian opposition activists in Paris, it was not taken too seriously. Now, it is clear to everyone that it was indeed an attack orchestrated by Iranian authorities,” Casaca argued.
In January, in a Tehran meeting with European representatives, Iranian officials reportedly stormed out and slammed the door. The undiplomatic response by the Iranians came in response to a European demand that the Islamic Republic end its ballistic missile tests and stop its terror plots on European soil.
Despite the growing tensions between Europe and Iran over the latter’s aggressive actions, the United Kingdom, Germany, and France, last week, announced the creation of a trading system for Iran to evade United States sanctions.
Iran, however, has rejected European criticisms.
Iran rejected the charges that it was responsible for attempting to kill dissidents on European soil as “empty and groundless,” even though four people, including the Iranian diplomat, have been arrested for a Paris bomb plot last summer.
The Islamic Republic also dismissed European concerns about its ballistic missile development program. Iran’s foreign ministry said that the nation’s ballistic missile program was a “domestic affair,” necessitated by its defensive needs. However, United Nations Security Council Resolution 2231, which implemented the 2015 nuclear deal, explicitly called on Iran not to develop ballistic missiles.
[Photo: Simay Azadi TV / YouTube ]