UK, US and allies accuse Iran of cross-border assassination plots
London: The United Kingdom and 13 allied nations have publicly accused Iran’s intelligence services of orchestrating a wave of assassination attempts, abductions and intimidation campaigns against individuals living in Europe and North America.
In a joint statement, governments including the United States, France, Germany and Canada denounced Tehran’s alleged extraterritorial operations as a flagrant breach of national sovereignty.
“We are united in our opposition to the attempts of Iranian intelligence services to kill, kidnap, and harass people in Europe and North America in clear violation of our sovereignty,” the group said.
The signatories – which also included Albania, Austria, Belgium, the Czech Republic, Denmark, Finland, the Netherlands, Spain, Sweden and the UK – urged Iranian authorities to halt these activities, which they claimed were increasingly carried out in partnership with international criminal groups.
In a statement on Friday, Esmaeil Baghaei, a spokesperson for Iran’s Ministry of Foreign Affairs, described the claims as “baseless”.
He called them “an attempt to divert public attention from the most pressing issue of the day, the genocide in occupied Palestine”.
Baghaei said the accusations were “blatant fabrications … designed as part of a malicious Iranophobia campaign aimed at exerting pressure on the great Iranian nation”.
A UK parliamentary committee recently attributed at least 15 plots targeting individuals in the UK since 2022 to Iranian intelligence operatives.
British officials have responded with tighter measures. In March, the UK government said Iran would be required to register any political influence activity inside the country, citing “escalating aggression” from its intelligence services.
In May, UK police arrested seven Iranians over alleged threats to national security, which Iran’s Ministry of Foreign Affairs denounced as “suspicious and unwarranted”.
Similar concerns have emerged elsewhere in Europe. Dutch security services said Tehran was behind a foiled 2024 attempt to assassinate an Iranian dissident in the Netherlands – charges Iran denied.
