The Netherlands announced on Friday that it expelled two Iranian embassy officials, but did not provide any clarifying information regarding why.
“We can confirm that the Netherlands has expelled two persons accredited to the Iranian embassy,” a spokesperson for Dutch intelligence service AIVD said, according to Reuters. “We will not provide any further information.”
An unnamed senior Iranian official responded to news of the ouster by blaming the United States for imposing sanctions on Iran and subsequently withdrawing America from the nuclear accord in May. “All these arrests and expulsions are part of our enemies’ attempts to harm efforts to salvage the nuclear deal,” the official told Reuters.
Talks held in Vienna on Friday between Iranian officials and Britain, China, France, Germany, and Russia – the five remaining nations who are signatories to the nuclear deal – were not received well by Iran. Reuters reported that, despite Iran’s most strenuous efforts to salvage whatever is left of the Joint Comprehensive Plan of Action (JCPOA), diplomats from Europe see limited scope for saving the deal.
This week, Belgium arrested an Iranian couple suspected of plotting to bomb the annual “Free Iran” rally held by the National Council of Resistance of Iran (NCRI), the umbrella organization for the Mojaheddin-e-Khalq (MEK), an exiled Iranian opposition group, in a Paris suburb last Saturday.
Belgium, part of the European Union (EU), has reportedly also requested the extradition of a Vienna, Austria-based Iranian diplomat being held in Germany, and another Iranian man in France, in connection with the foiled terrorist plot.
Members of the European Union can exercise the European Arrest Warrant (EAW). The EAW, which was introduced by the EU in 2004, permits any EU country to issue an arrest warrant to another EU country.
Iran responded to news of the arrests by denying it had anything to do with the terrorist plot.
Iranian Foreign Minister Mohammad Javad Zarif said the allegations of the Iranian regime’s involvement in the bombing plot a mere “sinister false flag ploy.”
“How convenient: Just as we embark on a presidential visit to Europe, an alleged Iranian operation and its ‘plotters’ arrested,” Zarif tweeted on Monday. “Iran unequivocally condemns all violence & terror anywhere, and is ready to work with all concerned to uncover what is a sinister false flag ploy.”
Adelle Nazarian is a politics and national security reporter for Breitbart News. Follow her on Facebook and Twitter.
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