IRAN: Ahmadinejad blames attacks against nuclear scientists on ‘Zionist dogs’

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Tempers flared in Iran on Wednesday as authorities held a funeral for Iranian nuclear physicians Majid Shahriari, who was killed in one of two reported attacks against the country’s atomic brain trust.

Iranian officials blamed the West and Israel for the attacks.

‘They mention the names of our scientists in their [United Nations] resolutions and provide the Zionist dogs with a copy and tell them to kill,’ President Mahmoud Ahmadinejad said in a speech in Mazandaran province, according to the semi-official Fars news agency

The attacks, which also injured one other nuclear scientist and three others, came as Iran and the West prepare for Dec. 6-7 talks in Geneva over Iran’s controversial nuclear program.

The head of that nuclear program, Ali Akbar Salehi, said during the burial ceremony Shahriari, one of his former students, that the killing was ‘part and parcel of a carrot-and-stick policy’ of the West meant to put pressure on Iran.

‘They used all their capacity, for example resolutions, sanctions and political pressures,’ Saeed Jalili, who will lead the negotiation team next week in Geneva, told state television. ‘The fact that today they are resorting to assassination shows their desperation and shows that they have reached a dead-end.’

-- Los Angeles Times