US demands Iran be punished for Saudi envoy plot

WASHINGTON: The United States has urged the world to take concerted action against Iran for an alleged plot to assassinate the Saudi ambassador on American soil, calling it a "dangerous escalation."

Tehran has accused the United States of fabricating the charges to distract from domestic economic woes amid growing anti-Wall Street protests, while some experts have voiced doubts that the plot was hatched by Iran's leaders.

Secretary of State Clinton rallied support for tough new measures against Iran, although it was not immediately clear what they might be.

"We call upon other nations to join us in condemning this threat to international peace and security," Clinton urged Wednesday.

This plot was "a flagrant violation of international and US law, and a dangerous escalation of the Iranian government's longstanding use of political violence and sponsorship of terrorism.

"This kind of reckless act undermines international norms and the international system. Iran must be held accountable for its actions."

The US Treasury meanwhile slapped sanctions on Mahan Air, a Tehran-based commercial airline accused of ferrying around the Middle East members of Iran's Islamic Revolutionary Guards Corps implicated in the plot.

The airline's assets in the United States were frozen and US citizens were barred from doing business with the firm.

US President Barack Obama called King Abdullah of Saudi Arabia to reaffirm ties in the wake of what the White House called an "Iranian-directed conspiracy to assassinate the Saudi Arabian Ambassador in Washington, DC."

Iran strongly denied any involvement in what the US says was a plot by the Iranian Revolutionary Guards' elite Quds force to kill the Saudi ambassador by hiring assassins from a Mexican drug cartel for $1.5 million. (AFP)