Riyadh refutes allegations by Tehran

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Saudi Foreign Ministry spokesman Osama Nugali said he was stunned by the Iranian allegations. In denouncing the Iranian allegations, Nugali said the Saudi government had conducted an extensive investigation after the scientist, Shahram Amiri, disappeared in May this year.

“After having been informed of his disappearance by the Iranian delegation (in Makkah), Saudi authorities undertook an intensive search in Madinah as well as in all the hospitals and hotels in the region of Makkah and even at his residence in the Kingdom,” Nugali said.

“This has raised a lot of questions about the circumstances that led to Amiri’s disappearance and his contacts,” the spokesman said, adding that the Saudi government had raised those issues with the Iranian delegation as well as with the Iranian Embassy in Riyadh. “But we have not yet received any official reply from Tehran.”

He said Saudi Arabia receives a million Iranian pilgrims every year who come for Haj and Umrah. “As with other countries these pilgrims are under the supervision of their own national delegations,” he said.

Iran’s Parliament Speaker Ali Larijani said that both Washington and Riyadh must be held responsible for Amiri’s disappearance. Iran’s state television said on Wednesday that the United States had behaved like a “terrorist” by abducting the scientist from Saudi Arabia.

“Americans have done such things in the past, but have never taken responsibility for their terrorist behavior,” Larijani said. “It is clear that this move was made by Americans and organized by Saudis and such behavior harms their reputations.”

Iranian Foreign Minister Manouchehr Mottaki on Tuesday accused the United States of abducting Amiri. “Based on existing pieces of evidence that we have at our disposal, the Americans had a role in Amiri’s abduction,” Mottaki told reporters, according to a TV report. “The Americans did abduct him. Therefore we expect the American government to return him.” Mottaki said Amiri had traveled to Saudi Arabia to perform Umrah when he disappeared.

“He disappeared in Saudi Arabia and naturally we asked the Saudi government to look into the case. Saudi Arabia must be held accountable in this regard.” Also Tuesday, an Iranian Foreign Ministry spokesman, Ramin Mehmanparast, said that Riyadh had handed Amiri over to Washington, while confirming that the missing Iranian was a nuclear scientist.

The US State Department declined Tuesday to comment on Tehran’s assertion that it had taken Amiri.

“We are aware of the Iranian claims,” said department spokesman Philip Crowley in Washington. “I have no information on that. I’m not going to say anything else,” he insisted as reporters pressed him at a media briefing.

The allegations came amid heightened US and European pressure on Tehran to halt its alleged efforts to develop nuclear weapons.

EU foreign ministers on Tuesday threatened new measures against Iran if it blocked progress toward resolving the dispute over its controversial nuclear program.

 

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