Iran blacklists nearly 60 US officials for top commander's assassination

Tehran, Jan 2 Iranian Foreign Minister has said that nearly 60 US officials have been blacklisted by Tehran for their involvement in the assassination of top Iranian commander Qassem Soleimani, semi-official Mehr news agency reported.

In a televised interview ahead of the third anniversary of the assassination of Soleimani, the former commander of the Quds Force of the Islamic Revolution Guards Corps, Foreign Minister Hossein Amir-Abdollahian on Sunday said Iran is investigating the US assassination of the commander.

He stressed that the Americans and Westerners, however, were throwing a wrench into Iran's efforts to pursue the case legally, although Tehran had taken necessary measures, Xinhua news agency reported.

During a recent round of the Vienna talks on the revival of a 2015 nuclear deal, the Americans demanded the removal of their former officials from Iran's blacklist, according to Amir-Abdollahian.

On January 3, 2020, the US military, at the order of the then President Donald Trump, assassinated Soleimani and the Deputy Commander of Iraq's paramilitary Hashd Shaabi forces Abu Mahdi al-Muhandis in a drone strike near Baghdad International Airport. The assassination was condemned by Iran as "state terrorism".

On January 8, 2020, Iran responded to the assassination by launching missiles at the US Ain al-Asad base in the Iraqi province of Anbar.

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