TEHRAN — Foreign Minister Mohammad Javad Zarif has urged the international community, especially the European Union, to abandon its double standard and condemn the state-sponsored assassination of Iran’s top nuclear scientist Mohsen Fakhrizadeh.

“Terrorists murdered an excellent Iranian scientist. This cowardice, which gives serious indications of Israel’s role, is an expression of the desperate warmongering of the perpetrators,” Zarif said via Twitter on Sunday.

“Iran appeals to the international community, particularly the EU, to abandon its shameful double standards and condemn this act of state terror,” he added.

Fakhrizadeh, who headed the Defense Ministry’s Organization of Defensive Innovation and Research, was assassinated in a multi-pronged attack involving at least one explosion and machinegun fire by a number of assailants in Absard city of Tehran Province’s Damavand County.

The expert was murdered in his car by terrorists, who blew up a pickup – a Nissan sedan – laden with explosives and fuel on the way of the car carrying Fakhrizadeh and then started shooting at his car and security guards.

Iranian officials have voiced suspicion that the Israeli regime might be behind the assassination. Israel has carried out a number of assassination operations against Iranian nuclear scientists over the past decade.

“Terrorists murdered an eminent Iranian scientist today. This cowardice—with serious indications of Israeli role—shows desperate warmongering of perpetrators. Iran calls on int'l community—and especially EU—to end their shameful double standards & condemn this act of state terror,” Zarif said in a tweet, hours after the Friday attack.

Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu had mentioned Fakhrizadeh in a 2018 presentation on the alleged atomic archive of Iran that Israel claims it stole from a warehouse in southern Tehran.

Netanyahu said at the time that he identified Fakhrizadeh as the head scientist in Iran’s nuclear program, and asked people to “remember that name”.

Majid Takht-Ravanchi, Iran’s ambassador to the United Nations, has said the U.S. and Israeli regimes are responsible for the assassination.

“The cowardly assassination of Martyr Fakhrizadeh – with serious indications of Israeli responsibility in it – is another desperate attempt to wreak havoc on our region as well as to disrupt Iran’s scientific and technological development,” Takht Ravanchi wrote in a letter to UN Secretary-General Antonio Guterres and President of the UN Security Council Inga Rhonda King on Friday.

The envoy warned against any adventurist moves by the United States and Israel against Iran, particularly during the remaining period of the current administration of Donald Trump, saying the Islamic Republic of Iran reserves its rights to take all necessary measures to defend its people and secure its interests.

MH/PA