Iran confirms Interpol request for US plot suspect

Iran's foreign minister, Ali Akbar Salehi, has confirmed an Interpol request concerning a suspect wanted over US allegations of an assassination plot, but suggested the name was too common to pinpoint the individual, Iranian reports said Thursday.

"There are 150 Gholam Shakuris (in Iran). Interpol sent us a question about this name, and our investigation showed a certain Gholam Shakuri who lives in the United States and is a member of the Mujahedeen Khalq Organization," Salehi was quoted in Iranian media as saying in Saudi Arabia.

The United States alleges Gholam Shakuri is an Iranian official in the Quds Force, a shadowy special operations outfit in Iran's Revolutionary Guards, and that he co-conspired with an Iranian-American car salesman, Manssor Arbabsiar, to kill the Saudi ambassador to Washington.

Iran has strongly denied any involvement in the alleged plot. The United States and Iran consider the group to be a terrorist organization but it was removed from a list of 50 banned militant groups compiled by the European Union in January 2009.