IRAN: An official from the government of Iran denied Monday that Tehran was involved in the attack on author Salman Rushdie, but he justified the stabbing in the Islamic Republic’s first public comments on the assault.

The remarks by Nasser Kanaani, the Iranian Foreign Ministry's spokesman, come more than two days after Rushdie was attacked in New York state.

Iran has denied conducting any operations abroad that targeted dissidents in the years following the country's 1979 Islamic Revolution, despite the fact that Western governments and prosecutors have linked Tehran to such acts. Furthermore, despite Iran's apparent lack of interest in Rushdie, a decades-old fatwa calling for his execution still persists.

“With regard to the attack against Salman Rushdie in America, we don’t think anyone deserving reproach, blame or even condemnation, except for Rushdie himself and his supporters,” Kanaani said. No one can hold the Islamic Republic of Iran accountable in this way, he added. We think that the insults he received and the support he received were directed at people of all faiths.

The attack on Rushdie, 75, happened on Friday when he was at an event in western New York. His agency said, he had a damaged liver as well as severed nerves in one arm and an eye. He is very likely going to lose the damaged eye, but his agency says he has been taken off a ventilator and is "on the road to recovery."

Although Dist. Atty. Jason Schmidt mentioned the bounty on Rushdie while arguing against bail at a hearing on Saturday, New York police have not yet provided a reason for the attack.

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