Iraqchi Denies Iran's Allegation of Attempting to Assassinate Trump

One day after the U.S. Justice Department announced charges against three individuals for their alleged connections to "IRGC plans" to assassinate Donald Trump, the former President of the United States, Iran's Foreign Minister dismissed the accusation. Abbas Araqchi, on Saturday, November 10, published a note in English on his social media accounts, implicitly accusing Israel of being involved in this new matter. He pointed out that "everyone knows who and why" acted to kill Ismail Haniyeh in Tehran "immediately after the inauguration ceremony" and wrote: "Now, with another election, a new scenario with a similar goal has been created." Ismail Haniyeh, a leader of Hamas, which is recognized as a terrorist group by the U.S. and the European Union, was killed in Tehran on July 31 this year. The day before, Ismail Baqai, the spokesperson for the Iranian Foreign Ministry, had also described the accusation as a conspiracy by Israel "to complicate the issues between America and Iran." The U.S. Justice Department on Friday charged an individual named Farhad Shakri and his two accomplices for their alleged connections to IRGC plans to assassinate Donald Trump and other conspiracies. Araqchi called the accusation against Iran "a trivial comedy" and stated that an interview with "a hypothetical assassin sitting in Iran and talking online with the FBI" is not credible. According to documents from the Manhattan federal court in New York, which were made public on Friday, Farhad Shakri, who is currently in Iran, agreed to be interviewed by the FBI five times over the phone in recent weeks. According to these documents, Shakri said he participated in the interview with the FBI to find a way to reduce the sentence of someone currently serving time in U.S. prisons through cooperation with law enforcement. The court documents did not mention the identity of this prisoner and referred to him only as "Person-1." While Araqchi has denied the allegation of Iran's attempt to assassinate Donald Trump and called it unbelievable, officials of the Islamic Republic have repeatedly emphasized the "certainty" of revenge against the "perpetrators and instigators" of the assassination of Qassem Soleimani, the former commander of the IRGC's Quds Force. In one instance, one of Ayatollah Khamenei's Twitter accounts was suspended after posting a poster that explicitly threatened Donald Trump with "certain revenge." In his new note, Araqchi also once again denied Iran's pursuit of nuclear weapons. He added: "The people of America have made their decision, and Iran respects their right to choose their desired president." Previously, the leader of the Islamic Republic had often spoken mockingly about Donald Trump and predicted that he would not return to the White House.