Speaking in her weekly press briefing on Tuesday, Iran’s Foreign Ministry Spokeswoman Marziyeh Afkham expressed Iran’s strong opposition to any “act of terror,” adding that bringing up this issue of the 1988 bombing again raises ambiguities.
In a Monday interview with Al Jazeera documentary, Abolghassem Mesbahi, who claims to be a former Iranian official, now living in Germany, claimed that the bombing was ordered by Tehran and carried out by the Syrian-based Popular Front for the Liberation of Palestine-General Command (PFLP-GC).
Back in 1988, 270 people were killed when PanAm flight 103 from London to New York blew up over the Scottish town of Lockerbie.
Libyan Abdelbaset Ali Mohmet al-Megrahi was the only person to be convicted of the bombing. Megrahi was found guilty of the Lockerbie bombing in 2001. The former director of the Centre for Strategic Studies in Tripoli, Libya, died in May 2012, almost three years after the Scottish government freed him on humanitarian grounds following his diagnosis with terminal cancer.
Elsewhere in her remarks, Afkham said that the administration of President Hassan Rouhani is willing to forge closer and stronger relations with the world based on constructive interactions.
This is a totally realistic approach and it is a policy of the government, she said, adding that the country’s diplomatic system bases its foreign relations on this approach.
In a Sunday meeting with EU foreign policy chief Catherine Ashton in Tehran, Rouhani said his administration is determined to have constructive interaction with all world countries based on mutual interests and respect.
Also pointing to Rouhani’s planned visit to Oman, Afkham said the Iranian president is due to travel to Oman at the head of a politico-economic delegation on Wednesday.
The Iranian official further said that President Rouhani is scheduled to hold talks with senior Omani officials, adding that several agreements are expected to be signed between the two countries during Rouhani’s two-day visit.