Executive Rishi Sunak has said the stabbing of Sir Salman Rushdie should be a “wake-up call” for the West about the threat that Iran still posing.
In the wake of the attack on the 75-year-old author, the former chancellor warned that attempts to revive the international nuclear deal with Iran may have reached a “dead end”.
He also suggested there could be a reason to impose sanctions on Iran’s hardline Islamic Revolutionary Guard Corps (IRGC).
On Saturday, Hadi Matar of Fairview, New Jersey, pleaded not guilty to charges of attempted murder and assault in a court in Mayville, New York.
The 24-year-old was born in the US to parents who immigrated from southern Lebanon — and a review of his social media accounts suggested he sympathized with the IRGC’s cause, according to US media reports.
Sir Salman had faced death threats since 1988 when the then Supreme Leader of Iran, Ayatollah Khomeni, issued a fatwa denouncing his novel, The Satanic Verses, as blasphemous against Islam.
In 1998, the Iranian government withdrew its support for the death sentence, but the fatwa was never fully repealed and some Iranian media reportedly welcomed the attack on the writer.
In a statement, Mr Sunak suggested that attempts to revive the international nuclear deal known as the Joint Comprehensive Plan of Action (JCPOA), requiring Iran to abandon its efforts to develop nuclear weapons in exchange for easing the sanctions, could be meaningless. .
“A nuclear-armed Iran would pose an existential threat to our ally Israel, and indeed endanger all of Europe with ballistic missiles,” he said.
“We urgently need a new, strengthened deal and much tougher sanctions, and if we can’t get results, we need to ask ourselves if the JCPOA is in a dead end.
“Salman Rushdie’s brutal stabbing should be a wake-up call to the West, and Iran’s response to the attack reinforces the case for banning the IRGC.”
Earlier, Boris Johnson said he was “appalled that Sir Salman Rushdie was stabbed while exercising a right that we should never cease to defend”.
labour party leader Sir Keir Starmer said: “Salman Rushdie has long embodies the fight for freedom and liberty against those they want to destroy.
“This cowardly attack on him yesterday is an attack on those values. The entire Labor Party is praying for his full recovery.”
US President Joe Biden said he was “shocked and saddened” by the attack on the writer.
“Salman Rushdie – with his insight into humanity, with his unparalleled sense of story, with his refusal to be intimidated or silenced – stands for essential, universal ideals. Truth. Courage. Resistance. The ability to share ideas without fear,” he said.
“These are the building blocks of any free and open society. And today we reaffirm our commitment to those deeply American values in solidarity with Rushdie and all those who stand up for freedom of expression.”