Salman Rushdie attack a 'wake-up call' on Iran, says UK PM candidate Rishi Sunak

LONDON: Rishi Sunak, one of two candidates seeking to become Britain's next prime minister, said Friday's attack on author Salman Rushdie should serve as a wake-up call to the West over Iran, Reuters reported.

Indian-born author Rushdie, who spent years in hiding after Iran urged Muslims to kill him over his novel "The Satanic Verses", was stabbed in the neck and torso on stage at a lecture in New York state. After hours of surgery, Rushdie was on a ventilator and unable to speak as of Friday evening.

There has been no official government reaction in Iran to the attack on Rushdie, but several hardline Iranian newspapers praised his assailant.

"The brutal stabbing of Salman Rushdie should be a wake-up call for the West, and Iran’s reaction to the attack strengthens the case for proscribing the IRGC (Islamic Revolutionary Guard Corps),” Sunak, the former finance minister, said, according to the paper.

The IRGC controls Iran's elite armed and intelligence forces.

Sunak, referring to stuttering talks between Iran and the West to revive a nuclear deal, said, "We urgently need a new, strengthened deal and much tougher sanctions, and if we can’t get results then we have to start asking whether the JCPOA is at a dead end."

The JCPOA, or the Joint Comprehensive Plan of Action, is the 2015 agreement under which Iran curbed its nuclear programme in return for relief from U.S., EU and UN sanctions.

“The situation in Iran is extremely serious and in standing up to (Russian President Vladimir) Putin we can’t take our eye off the ball elsewhere," Sunak said.

Salman Rushdie attack suspect Hadi Matar pleads not guilty

Meanwhile, Salman Rushdie remained hospitalized on Saturday with serious injuries a day after he was repeatedly stabbed at a public appearance in New York state, while police sought to determine the motive behind an attack that drew international condemnation.

The accused attacker, 24-year-old Hadi Matar of Fairview, New Jersey, entered a not guilty plea at a court appearance on Saturday, his court-appointed lawyer, Nathaniel Barone, told Reuters.