Albania on Wednesday severed diplomatic ties with Iran over an alleged cyberattack against the government this summer, as Washington vowed to hold Tehran accountable for attacks on its NATO ally.
Albania and Iran have been bitter enemies for years, ever since the Balkan state began welcoming members of the opposition People’s Mujahideen of Iran, or Mujahedeen-e-Khalq (MEK), onto its soil.
Prime Minister Edi Rama on Wednesday accused Iran of conducting a July 15 cyberattack on Albanian institutions to “cripple public services and hack data and electronic communications from government systems.”
It was the first time Tirana had spoken out about the alleged attack, and Rama said his country had severed ties with Iran over it.
“The Council of Ministers has decided to sever diplomatic relations with the Islamic Republic of Iran with immediate effect,” Rama said.
“The attack in question failed in its purpose. The damage can be considered minimal compared to the attacker’s goals. All systems were fully functional again and there was no irreversible deletion of data.”
The prime minister said Iranian diplomats and embassy staff have 24 hours to leave the country.
Iran dismissed accusations of being behind the cyber attack as “baseless” and called Albania’s decision to sever diplomatic ties “a rash and short-sighted act”.
“Iran, as one of the target countries of cyberattacks on its critical infrastructure, rejects and condemns any use of cyberspace as a tool to attack the critical infrastructure of other countries,” its foreign ministry said.
The Islamic Republic has also been the target of cyberattacks, most notably in 2010 when the Stuxnet virus — believed to have been developed by Israel and the US — infected its nuclear program.
The United States scolded Iran over the alleged attack and vowed to support its Balkan ally.
“The United States strongly condemns Iran’s cyber attack on our NATO ally Albania,” National Security Council spokeswoman Adrienne Watson said in a statement.
“The United States will take further action to hold Iran accountable for actions that threaten the security of a US ally and set a disturbing cyberspace precedent,” Watson added.
– ‘Threats and Conspiracies’ –
Albania agreed to accept members of the MEK in 2013 at the request of Washington and the United Nations, with thousands settling in the Balkan country over the years.
After the collapse of its communist government in the early 1990s, Albania has emerged as a staunch ally of the United States and the West, formally joining NATO in 2009.
The MEK backed Ayatollah Ruhollah Khomeini in the 1979 revolution that ousted the Shah but quickly fell out with the new Islamic authorities and launched a decades-long campaign to overthrow the regime.
The MEK regularly hosts summits in Albania, which have long garnered support from conservative US Republicans, including former Vice President Mike Pence, who delivered a keynote address at an event in June.
A month later, the group postponed another summit, citing unspecified security threats targeting the event.
The summit was canceled “at the recommendation of the Albanian government, for security reasons and because of terrorist threats and conspiracies,” the MEK said in a statement released in late July.
The gathering should be attended or accompanied online by various high-profile political delegations, including hundreds of lawmakers from six continents, organizers said.
Iranian opposition groups in exile have accused Tehran of targeting its events and staff for years.
In 2018, Belgian police foiled a terrorist attack aimed at an Iranian opposition rally outside Paris, prompting an Iranian diplomat to be convicted of supplying explosives for the conspiracy.
Albania has expelled a number of Iranian diplomats from the Balkan country over the years, including Tehran’s ambassador to the country in December 2018.
