TEHRAN – Iran has categorically denounced a Belgian court’s ruling against Iranian diplomat Assadollah Assadi.

Iranian Foreign Ministry spokesman Saeed Khatibzadeh issued a statement on Thursday saying that Iran strongly condemns the 20-year jail term issued by a court in the Belgian city of Antwerp against the Iranian diplomat.

“As we have repeatedly announced earlier, all the procedures that have so far been taken against the diplomat, including his arrest, the case brought against him or the conviction, were all unlawful and amounted to blatant violation of international law, especially the 1961 Vienna Convention on Diplomatic Relations, and the Islamic Republic of Iran will never recognize it,” Khatibzadeh asserted.

“Unfortunately, Belgium and some [other] European countries have taken such illegal and unjustifiable actions [against Assadi] under the influence of the atmosphere that has been created by the hostile Mojahedin Kalq Organization terrorist group on Europe’s soil,” he continued.

Therefore, he added, they must be held accountable for their flagrant violation of the Iranian diplomat’s rights, including the inhumane conditions of the time he faced under arrest in Germany and Belgium.

"The Islamic Republic of Iran reserves the right to resort to all possible legal and diplomatic means to realize the rights of Mr. Assadollah Assadi and to hold accountable the governments that have violated their international obligations," Khatibzadeh concluded.

The Belgian court claimed that Assadi and three others sought to kill top leaders of the MKO during a rally near Paris in 2019.

Iran has called the bomb plot allegations a "false flag" stunt perpetrated by the MKO.

A spokesman for Iran's Foreign Ministry told ISNA that Assadi was the victim of a "Western trap," and that his diplomatic immunity had been violated.

At the timed that Assadi was arrested, Bahram Ghassemi, then a spokesman for the Iranian Foreign Ministry and now Iran’s ambassador to France, said he deeply regretted the decision, saying it was part of a "staged conspiracy" to sever relations between Europe and Iran.