South Africa's Foreign Minister has described a US news story that Iran was plotting to assassinate Ambassador Lana Marks as very strange.

Iran PressAfrica: Naledi Pandor was speaking in an exclusive interview with the SABC News ahead of the United Nations General Assembly’s High-Level week, which begins on Monday next week in New York.

Pandor says she was not given a heads up before the Politico story broke.

“It is a matter of the protection services and that which is provided to our diplomats, we have assured them through the statement of State Security Minister, Ayanda Dlodlo, that South Africa believes diplomats in our country are safe and should there be a need for additional measures, these would be taken and obviously we will ask and Minister Dlodlo would seek more information from her colleagues in the Security sector in the United States,” she says.

“But it’s been a very strange public statement and of course our friends in Iran are as surprised as we were. I find it surprising, why would Iran being a very good friend of South Africa come and commit a horrendous act in a country which has been a good friend to Iran, and of such a nature? I can only describe it as bizarre and let me stop there.”

211