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'Claims Rooted in Delusion': Iran Rejects Charges of Meddling in US Elections

Iran has joined Russia and China in the list of countries Washington has baselessly accused of interfering in US politics.
Sputnik

Iran's foreign ministry has rejected claims that it had plans to interfere in the upcoming midterm congressional elections in the US, calling the allegations dubious.

"The principled policy of the Islamic Republic of Iran is based on non-interference in the domestic affairs of other countries," Iranian Foreign Ministry spokesman Bahram Qassemi said in a statement published on the ministry's website.

"US officials' attempts to accuse Iran of interference in the US congressional elections are basically false and misleading, and probably rooted in a kind of unknown delusion," the official suggested.

Blocking Meddling from China, Russia Among ‘Top Priorities’ of US Government
Pointing to the growing list of countries Washington is accusing of meddling, Qassemi suggested that this list has "specific domestic political purposes" in mind, rather than being based on any evidence.

"The US president has said that from the moment he came into office, Iran has been busy with its internal affairs, is so weak that it is focused only on survival, and cannot even consider regional issues. How can such an 'introverted' country, as American officials call us, influence US elections?" the spokesman asked.

Late last week, multiple US intelligence agencies expressed concerns about alleged "ongoing campaigns by Russia, China and other foreign actors, including Iran, to undermine confidence in democratic institutions and influence public sentiment and government policies."

The statement accused Russia, China and Iran among others of trying to disrupt the upcoming midterm elections, but admitted that US intelligence had no actual "evidence of a compromise or disruption of infrastructure that would enable adversaries to prevent voting, change vote counts or disrupt our ability to tally votes in the midterm elections."

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Instead, the statement said, meddling attempts consisted of things like foreign-language media, or hacking local or state-level websites related to the elections.

Russia has been at the heart of Democratic Party claims of foreign meddling since Donald Trump's election in 2016. More recently, Trump and Vice-President Mike Pence accused China of being an even "bigger problem" in this regard. Iran, which has repeatedly accused the US of Washington of meddling in its own affairs going back to the 1953 coup d'état, has not been generally accused of meddling in US affairs until now.

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