By Syed Zafar Mehdi
TEHRAN, Iran (AA) – Iran has slammed the Joe Biden administration for pursuing what it calls the "failed path" of the previous US administration against Tehran, one day after Washington slapped sanctions on four Iranians over an alleged plot to kidnap a journalist.
Foreign Ministry spokesman Saeed Khatibzadeh said Saturday that Washington should "abandon its addiction to sanctions" and resort to "respectful language and conduct" toward Tehran.
The US government on Friday announced sanctions on four Iranian intelligence operatives over an alleged plot to kidnap a New York-based Iranian-American journalist.
In a statement, the US Treasury Department’s office of foreign assets control (OFAC) said it was “designating four Iranian intelligence operatives who targeted a US citizen in the United States and Iranian dissidents in other countries as part of a wide-ranging campaign to silence critics of the Iranian government.”
The statement said “a senior (Iranian) intelligence official Alireza Shahvaroghi Farahani led a network that plotted the kidnapping of a US journalist and human rights activist” and that “consistent with the well-documented role of the Ministry of Intelligence and Security in domestic repression, this operation demonstrates the pernicious role of Iran’s intelligence apparatus in targeting Iranians abroad, to include brazen attempts to return dissidents to Iran.”
The four blacklisted men include Alireza Shahvaroghi Farahani, Mahmoud Khazein, Kiya Sadeghi and Omid Noori, it announced.
The OFAC sanctions will block all assets of the four individuals in the US or in US control, and prevent any transactions between them and American citizens.
The statement did not reveal the identity of the Iranian-American journalist, but the target of the alleged plot is said to be Masih Alinejad, a prominent journalist associated with Voice of America's Persian service.
Khatibzadeh, however, said the US authorities were "resorting to Hollywood scenarios" by implicating Iranian nationals in the alleged kidnapping plot.
“The supporters and merchants of sanctions in the US have found their sanctions toolbox empty due to Iran's maximum resistance," he said.
In July, the US Department of Justice accused four Iranians of conspiring to kidnap Alinejad from her New York apartment. It claimed that the intelligence operatives planned to take her out of the US to Venezuela.
Iran's Foreign Ministry at the time dismissed the allegations as "baseless and ridiculous".
The sanctions came amidst heightened tensions between the two long-time adversaries with stalemate over talks in Vienna to salvage the 2015 nuclear accord.
The new conservative government in Tehran, although willing to continue informal negotiations with the US, is expected to adopt a tougher line than the previous reformist government.