Iran has dismissed claims by United States law-enforcement and intelligence officials that it is interfering in the US president election.

Saeed Khatibzadeh, Foreign Ministry spokesman, said Thursday morning in Tehran that the ministry had summoned the Swiss ambassador, who chairs the US Interest Section in the Iranian capital, and told him that it makes no difference to Iran who wins the election on November 3. Khatibzadeh called the US allegations “fabricated, deceitful, repetition and naïve.”

A deputy press officer at the Iranian mission to the UN, Alireza Miryousefi, also denied Iranian intervention. “Unlike the US, Iran does not interfere in other country’s elections,” he said. “The world has been witnessing the US’ own desperate public attempts to question the outcome of its own elections at the highest level.” Miryousefi was presumably referring to President Donald Trump’s repeated allegations over fraud related to mail-in ballots.

Miryousefi added: “These accusations are nothing more than another scenario to undermine voter confidence, & are absurd. Iran has no interest in interfering in the U.S. election & no preference for the outcome. U.S. must end its malign and dangerous accusations against Iran.”

On Wednesday October 21, the US Director of National Intelligence John Ratcliffe and FBI Director Chris Wray announced they had evidence of both Russia and Iran obtaining US voter registration data as part of attempts to influence the November election.

“Iran is behind threatening, spoofed emails sent to voters, the officials said, but there was no indication that any votes themselves had been altered,” the New York Times reported.

Iran has been previously implicated in several hacking attempts abroad but has usually denied involvement, even though government hackers sometimes leave their mark as ‘Cyber Army’ on defaced websites.

An ISNA report on Thursday called the US accusations “strange” and reiterated the argument that Iran had no interest in influencing American voters. During recent weeks, however, Iranian hardliners have accused the Rouhani administration of supporting Joe Biden, Trump’s Democratic Party challenger, and operating like an election headquarters for Biden. On Wednesday, IRGC-owned daily newspaper Javan called on the administration to end its support for Biden.

The daily suggested that Iranian reformists were planning to boost their own activities should Biden win, since a Democratic victory in the US would empower both the reformists and the centrist camp of Rouhani.

Iran’s hardliners think that while Rouhani would find it difficult to deal with a re-elected Trump, negotiations with Biden could revive the 2015 nuclear deal and ease US sanctions imposed by Trump. The Rouhani administration has refused stringent conditions set by Trump for any talks, despite the country’s economic and foreign policy crises.

Iran has been previously implicated in several hacking attempts abroad, but it has usually denied its involvement although government hackers sometimes leave their mark as "Cyber Army" on some defaced websites.