Foreign Minister Fareed Zakaria met with Iran’s Acting Foreign Minister Ali Bagheri Kani at Hudson Yards in New York and asked him about a CNN report about an alleged Iranian assassination plot against former President Donald Trump.
The reports come after US authorities received information about the plot from a private source in recent weeks, a development that has led the Secret Service to step up security around the former president in recent weeks, people briefed on the matter told CNN.
The Islamic Republic of Iran’s Permanent Mission to the United Nations denied the charges.
During the interview, Zakaria asked Kani whether the plan was retaliation for the assassination of Qassem Soleimani, a senior Iranian official who was killed in January 2020 under the Trump administration.
“I have made it clear that we will resort to legal and judicial procedures and frameworks at the national and international levels to bring to justice the perpetrators of the assassination of General Soleimani and his military advisers,” Kani said.
Asked further whether that meant no violent means would be used, Kani said: “We will only rely on Iranian and international legal and judicial processes.”
“We have done so in the past and it is our right and of course we will continue to do so in the future. And the US has openly said that it has assassinated a senior Iranian military commander. So it is our right to pursue this matter and those accused in this case should be tried in a fair court,” Kani said.
The full interview with Zakaria and Kani will air on “Fareed Zakaria GPS” Sunday at 10 a.m. ET.
