Iran asks Saudi to avoid creating complexity in bilateral ties

Iran's Foreign Minister Ali-Akbar Salehi said Wednesday he expects Saudi Arabia to avoid creating further complexity in bilateral relations, the official IRNA news agency reported. Responding to a reporter's question about the draft resolution submitted to the United Nations General Assembly on Tuesday by the United States and Saudi Arabia to deplore an alleged plot by Iran to assassinate the Saudi Arabian ambassador to Washington, Salehi said that Saudi Arabia was not expected to take such a measure. Salehi said given Iran's efforts to create an atmosphere of friendship, peace and stability in the region as well as its attempts to enhance the spirit of friendship between the two countries, such a measure by Saudi Arabia was surprising, according to the report. Iran's Ambassador to the UN Mohammad Khazaei said Tuesday that the draft resolution was an "unprecedented, dangerous and unacceptable" initiative which would discredit the UN General Assembly, local satellite Press TV reported on Wednesday. The presentation of the draft resolution, which has merely been based on false claims against another UN member state, shows that the United States pursues nothing but to promote its own short- sighted objectives by using the General Assembly as a tool, Khazaei was quoted as saying. In October, the United States said that Manssor Arbabsayara, a 56-year-old U.S. citizen holding both Iranian and U. S. passports, and Gholam Shakuri, a member of the Islamic Revolutionary Guard Corps (IRGC), were charged with sponsoring and promoting terrorist activities abroad, including a plot to assassinate the Saudi envoy. Arbabsayara was arrested by U.S. authorities, while Shakuri remains in Iran. The high-profile accusations have brought fresh tensions to relations between the two arch-foes, with Iran fiercely denying such charges.