Tehran sends 3rd note to Baku on ‘terror acts’

TEHRAN / WASHINGTON

Azerbaijan’s ambassador to Tehran summoned to Iranian foreign ministry. AP photo

Iran on March 17 formally protested against an accusation by Azerbaijan that it ordered “terrorist acts” in the neighboring republic against Western and Israeli targets, in its third summons less than a month.

Azerbaijan’s ambassador to Tehran, Javanshir Akhundov, was summoned to the foreign ministry to hear an official denial that Iran was involved in plots Baku claimed were masterminded by Iran’s Revolutionary Guards, the state news agency IRNA reported, quoting a ministry statement. Baku made the charge on March 14. Its national security ministry said that 22 Azerbaijani citizens had been arrested on suspicion of cooperating with the Revolutionary Guards “to commit terrorist acts against the U.S., Israeli and other Western states’ embassies and the embassies’ employees.”

‘Mossad, CIA agree on Iran’

Meanwhile, Israel’s intelligence service Mossad agrees with U.S. assessments of Iran’s nuclear ambitions, even though Israeli leaders have talked about Tehran’s plans to acquire nuclear weapons, The New York Times reported late March 17. “Their people ask very hard questions, but Mossad does not disagree with the U.S. on the weapons program,” the newspaper quoted an unnamed former senior U.S. intelligence official as saying. “There is not a lot of dispute between the U.S. and Israeli intelligence communities on the facts,” the former official said. The Times reported last month that U.S. intelligence analysts continue to believe there was no hard evidence that Iran has decided to build a nuclear bomb. Amid talks between the U.S. and Israel, Aladin Borujerdi, the head of Iran’s parliamentary foreign policy commission, said Iran will make absolutely no concessions on its nuclear program. “The parliament will never allow the government to go back even one step in its nuclear policy.”