The Iranian embassy in New Delhi has called on the international community to condemn the “act of state terror” after its top nuclear scientist, Mohsen Fakhrizadeh, was assassinated last Friday near Tehran. In a statement released on Monday, the embassy sought to draw the attention of the Indian government and people to Fakhrizadeh’s “prominent role in peaceful scientific projects in Iran” and accused Israel of conspiring to “incite chaos” in the region.
“The Iranian people hope that the international community will condemn state terrorism and create a consensus to counter tension and adventurism in the region,” the statement read.
The embassy praised the murdered scientist for his contribution to “national efforts to curb the Covid-19 pandemic.” In addition, he said that several of the top Iranian scientists and national heroes have been targeted in recent years, emphasizing that the evidence “clearly indicates” foreign hands behind such attacks.
“The recent assassination of the senior Iranian nuclear scientist also bears the clear stamp of the cowardly acts committed by Israel’s terrorist regime, which has already murdered large numbers of scientific elites in Iran and throughout the region,” added the embassy.
Read also | The murder of an Iranian scientist could trigger a serious confrontation with Israel. This is why
The West long suspected that Fakhrizadeh had planned a secret nuclear program for the country and, in 2018, Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu had said, “Remember that name, Fakhrizadeh,” while warning of a secret atomic warehouse. The International Atomic Energy Agency (IAEA) inspected the alleged atomic warehouse site in February 2019 and found traces of uranium.
The United States, Russia, China, Germany, Britain, and France signed an agreement with Iran in 2015, known as the Joint Comprehensive Plan of Action (JCPoA). In 2018, US President Donald Trump announced Washington’s withdrawal from the agreement and imposed unilateral sanctions on Tehran as part of his “maximum pressure” campaign.
The Iranian embassy has also accused Israel of persuading Washington to abandon the nuclear deal.
.
