Iran Thursday strongly refuted Israel’s allegations about its involvement in the bombing of an Israeli diplomat’s car here in February, but agreed to consider India’s proposal to send a team of investigators to that country.
“We have been accused of so many things so many times. We totally refute allegations of this sort,” Iranian Foreign Minister Ali Akbar Salehi told reporters here after talks with India’s External Affairs Minister S.M. Krishna.
He accused the “Zionist regime of Israel” of assassinating Iranian scientists and publicly admitting it.
They have given assassinations a kind of legal validity, he added.
On Feb 13, four people were injured when an Israeli diplomat’s car was struck by a bomb near the Israeli embassy in New Delhi.
Tal Yehoshua Koren, wife of the Israeli defence attache, suffered multiple injuries when a motorcycle rider attached a magnetic explosive device to her car and sped away. Within seconds, the device exploded, setting the car on fire.
Israel blamed Iran for the attack. India subsequently launched a probe into the incident.
In an important development, during lunch with Salehi, Krishna made the request about India’s plan to send its investigators to Iran. Salehi, according to official sources, agreed to consider the proposal.
The probe has put India in a bit of diplomatic bind as it tries to juggle its long-standing ties with Iran and its growing relations with Israel and the US. India has not backed Israel’s assertion that Iran was behind the bombing of the Israeli diplomat’s car, and has maintained that it will take a stand only after the probe into the attack is concluded.