U.N. Security Council condemns bomb attack in Iran

The U.N. Security Council heeded a request from Tehran on Tuesday and condemned a weekend bomb attack that killed nearly 60 people in Iran, six of them commanders in the Iranian Revolutionary Guards, Reuters reported.

The unanimously approved statement came in response to a letter from Iran's U.N. ambassador, Mohammad Khazaee, who demanded that the 15-nation council take a stand on the bombing, which the Revolutionary Guards chief said was carried out by a group linked to the United States and Britain.

"The members of the Security Council condemned in the strongest terms the deadly terrorist attacks that occurred in the border city of Pish in Iran on 18 October 2009," said the statement, which was read out to reporters by Vietnamese Ambassador Le Luong Minh, currently president of the council.

The council "underlined the need to bring perpetrators, organizers, financiers and sponsors of this reprehensible act of terrorism to justice." It urged all countries "to cooperate actively with the Iranian authorities in this regard."

Iran has said the Sunni Muslim insurgent group Jundollah (God's soldiers) claimed responsibility for Sunday's bombing in Sistan-Baluchestan province, which the council statement said had killed 57 people and injured 150 more.

Revolutionary Guards commander-in-chief Mohammad Ali Jafari on Monday accused the United States, Britain and Pakistan of sharing responsibility for the bomb attack.

He was quoted by Iran's ISNA news agency as saying that Iranian security officials had documents indicating Jundollah had "direct ties" to U.S., British and Pakistani intelligence.

Khazaee did not point any fingers in his letter to the Security Council, but said, "There are indications that the group enjoys the support of some foreign countries."

Britain and the United States are permanent members of the Security Council, a U.N. body that Iran accuses of taking illegal action against the Islamic Republic to suppress its nuclear program.

London and Washington had previously condemned the attack. A U.S. State Department spokesman rejected the reports of U.S. involvement in the attack as "completely false."

Iran's atomic activities are a regular item on the Security Council's agenda. Tehran's nuclear ambitions are also the subject of international talks at the U.N. nuclear watchdog in Vienna this week.

Tehran, which has been hit with three rounds of U.N. sanctions for refusing to suspend sensitive nuclear activities, denies Western allegations it is secretly developing atomic weapons. It says its nuclear program is aimed solely at the peaceful generation of electricity.