Obama demands accountability from Iran over plot

WASHINGTON: President Barack Obama Thursday demanded accountability from the top levels of the Iranian government over an alleged terror plot, but declined to say how high up in the regime the planning went.

The president, at a press conference with South Korean President Lee Myung-Bak, answered his first on-camera questions about what Washington says was a conspiracy to blow up the Saudi ambassador to the United States.

"We believe that even if at the highest levels there was not detailed operational knowledge, there has to be accountability with respect to anybody in the Iranian government engaging in this kind of activity," Obama said.

"The important thing is for Iran to answer the international community, why anybody in their government is engaging in these kinds of activities?"

The president however said he would leave it to US Attorney General Eric Holder, who filed an indictment against two alleged plotters this week, to lay out the details of the alleged terror scheme.

He declined to answer a question about whether the top levels of the government in Tehran were involved in the planning.

The indictment charged that the plot, involving an unnamed Mexican drugs cartel, was the work of senior members of the Iranian Revolutionary Guards' elite Quds force. (AFP)