Iran spreading terror: U.K.

February 19, 2012 10:07 pm | Updated July 24, 2016 03:33 am IST - LONDON:

British Foreign Secretary William Hague on Sunday seized on last week's attacks on Israeli diplomats in New Delhi, Bangkok and Georgia to accuse Iran of spreading terrorism.

Iran has denied any involvement in the attacks and, instead, blamed Israel and America for the assassination of several Iranian nuclear scientists in recent years.

Mr. Hague said the last week's events and the discovery recently of an alleged plot to assassinate the Saudi Ambassador in Washington suggested Tehran's involvement “in illegal and potentially terrorist activity in other parts of the world”.

“We saw the Iranian plot recently to assassinate the Saudi Ambassador to Washington on U.S. soil.

“It's alleged that they have been involved in what happened in the last week in New Delhi, Georgia and Bangkok.

“I think Iran has increased in its willingness to contemplate utterly illegal activities in other parts of the world — this is part of the dangers that Iran is currently presenting to the peace of the world,” Mr. Hague told the BBC.

Israeli threats

The British Foreign Secretarywarned that if Iran developed nuclear weapons it could provoke an attack on it possibly leading to a war alluding to Israeli threats to attack Iran.

However, he said Britain had not been shown any plans by Israel for an attack on Iran and had not been asked to be involved in any such attack.

He insisted that Britain was focused on diplomacy and targeted economic sanctions to bring “Iran back to the table”.

Oil supplies

Mr. Hague's remarks came as Iran announced that it had stopped oil supplies to Britain and France. Britain sought to play down the move as it imports “very little'' oil from Iran and would not be greatly affected.

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