Iran president censures St Petersburg metro terror attack

Iranian President Hassan Rouhani has denounced a terrorist bomb attack which left over a dozen people dead in a train carriage in St. Petersburg, Russia.

In a message to Russian President Vladimir Putin on Tuesday, Rouhani said, “As mentioned in the recent negotiations with you in Moscow, uprooting all forms of terrorism regardless of its motivation, requires a collective effort by the international community and cooperation among all countries to counter the ideological origins and supporters of criminal [terrorist] groups.”

Rouhani also expressed the Islamic Republic’s readiness for “any form of cooperation with the Russian government” in the campaign against terrorism.

The Iranian president said he “strongly condemns the heinous crime” in St. Petersburg and expressed deep sympathy with his Russian counterpart and the bereaved families of the victims.

The Russian Investigative Committee said the deadly metro explosion in St. Petersburg, which killed 14 and injured almost 50 others on Monday, was caused by a bomb that had been detonated by a man whose body parts were found in one of the train carriages.

Iranian Foreign Ministry Spokesman Bahram Qassemi also on Monday condemned the attack and called to form a serious international coalition for battling terrorism. He said, “We believe that the only way to stop these terrible atrocities is to cut them out by the roots; the only way to do this is through serious will of all international governments and organizations.”

EA