Iran envoy accuses Israel over Bulgaria bus bomb

Iran's UN envoy on Wednesday accused Israel of staging a suicide bomb attack on an Israeli tourist bus in Bulgaria. The envoy Mohammad Khazaee said Israel staged the attack, in which five Israelis and their Bulgarian driver were killed, as part of a campaign of "state terrorism operations and assassinations aimed at implicating others for narrow political gains." The comments in a UN Security Council debate on the Middle East outraged Israeli officials, who have accused Iran and their Lebanese militia ally Hezbollah of carrying out the July 18 attack near Burgas airport. Khazaee said "the representative of the Zionist criminal regime leveled baseless allegations against my country" over the Bulgaria attack. Iran would never take part in such a "despicable attempt on the lives of innocent people," he added. "Such (a) terrorist operation could only be planned and carried out by the same regime whose short history is full of state terrorism operations and assassinations aimed at implicating others for narrow political gains," Khazaee said. The envoy said there were "many examples" of Israel killing "innocent Jewish people" and renewed accusations that Israel has been behind recent killings of Iranian nuclear scientists. Haim Waxman, Israel's deputy UN ambassador, said: "These comments are appalling, but not surprising from the same government that says the 9/11 attack was a conspiracy theory and denies the Holocaust." Waxman reaffirmed his government's accusations against Iran. "Iran's fingerprints are all over last week's horrific attack in Bulgaria -- and in dozens of other terrorist plots in recent months that span five continents and at least 24 countries," he said.