US and NATO allies warn of increasing Iranian threats in Europe, North America

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WASHINGTON (AP) — The United States and many of its NATO allies are accusing Iran of a growing number of threats throughout Europe and North America and demanding that it end its attempts to harm dissidents and others.

“We are united in our opposition to the attempts of Iranian intelligence services to kill, kidnap, and harass people in Europe and North America in clear violation of our sovereignty,” the joint statement released on Thursday said.

“These services are increasingly collaborating with international criminal organizations to target journalists, dissidents, Jewish citizens, and current and former officials in Europe and North America,” it said. “This is unacceptable.”

The joint statement was signed by NATO members Albania, Belgium, Britain, Canada, the Czech Republic, Denmark, Finland, France, Germany, the Netherlands, Spain, Sweden and the United States. The only non-NATO member to sign was Austria, headquarters of the U.N. nuclear watchdog.

The statement said that any such attacks would be considered “violations of our sovereignty” and the governments committed to working together to foil any plots while calling on Iran “to immediately put an end to such illegal activities in our respective territories.”

The statement did not identify any particular attack, although the U.S. and others have warned for many years of Iranian-sponsored plots on European and U.S. soil.

British intelligence officials have repeatedly warned of the growing scale of Tehran-backed plots in Britain. Three alleged Iranian spies currently face charges that they conducted surveillance on and plotted violence against U.K.-based journalists for an Iranian news outlet.

Earlier this month Parliament’s Intelligence and Security Committee said “Iran poses a wide-ranging, persistent and unpredictable threat to the U.K.”

In early July, German prosecutors announced that a man suspected of gathering information on “Jewish locations and people in Berlin for Iranian intelligence, possibly with a view to attacks, had been arrested in Denmark. They didn’t elaborate.

Despite the ongoing threat, the Trump administration earlier this year rescinded government-funded protection for several former officials from President Donald Trump’s first term.

That protection had been provided and repeatedly extended during the Biden administration due to threats from Iran against former national security adviser John Bolton, former Secretary of State Mike Pompeo, former Iran envoy Brian Hook and a number of military officers.

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Jill Lawless in London and Geir Moulson in Berlin contributed to this report.