Amsterdam has "strong indications" that Tehran was behind the assassinations of two Dutch nationals of Iranian origin in 2015 and 2017, Dutch Foreign Minister Stef Blok and Interior Minister Kajsa Ollongren said on Tuesday.
MOSCOW (Pakistan Point News / Sputnik - 08th January, 2019) Amsterdam has "strong indications" that Tehran was behind the assassinations of two Dutch nationals of Iranian origin in 2015 and 2017, Dutch Foreign Minister Stef Blok and Interior Minister Kajsa Ollongren said on Tuesday.The statement comes as the European Union agreed to enact sanctions against Iran's intelligence service and two Iranian nationals for alleged assassination plots on European soil earlier in the day.
"[The General Intelligence and Security Service] has strong indications that Iran was involved in the assassinations of two Dutch nationals of Iranian origin, in Almere in 2015 and in The Hague in 2017. These individuals were opponents of the Iranian regime," Blok and Ollongren said in a letter to the president of the country's House of Representatives.
In response, "the Netherlands took firm diplomatic measures" in June 2018, by summoning the Iranian ambassador and expelling two Iranian diplomats, according to the ministers.
"In the interests of facilitating this common EU action, confidentiality was required. This is why the government decided not to disclose sooner the reason for expelling the two Iranian diplomats," the letter added.
The ministers, however, admitted that the ongoing investigations into the assassinations "have not confirmed [yet], in a criminal law sense, the intelligence that suggests interference by Iran."
Iran has, meanwhile, denied having any role in the assassinations, according to the letter.
Initially, EU nations agreed to mull introducing new sanctions against Tehran at Foreign Ministers' Meeting in November. The decision was made after in late October, the Danish Security and Intelligence Service (PET) accused its Iranian counterparts of plotting an assassination of an Iranian separatist group official in Denmark.
