Iran's ambassador to Bulgaria reiterated Friday that Tehran was in no way involved in a bomb attack that killed five Israelis in July, after Sofia blamed Hizbullah.

"The Burgas attack has nothing to do with Iran," Gholamreza Bagheri told reporters, adding that his country "condemned terrorism in all its forms."

The suspected Hizbullah bomber who killed five Israelis in Bulgaria last July did not intend to die in the attack, but wanted to return to Lebanon with his two accomplices, the government said Thursday.

The man "was not a kamikaze but only meant to put the ... explosive device in the baggage compartment of the bus and detonate it later from afar," Interior Minister Tsvetan Tsvetanov said.

Interior Minister Marwan Charbel reassured the Lebanese on Thursday that accusations by Bulgaria of Hizbullah's involvement in a deadly attack on Israeli tourists last year will not have repercussions on the country.

In remarks to the Kuwaiti al-Seyassah daily, Charbel said the claim that Hizbullah was involved in the bomb attack on a bus in Burgas airport in July 2012 “will not have repercussions on the government and the local scene.”

Prime Minister Najib Miqati shied away on Thursday from responding to criticism over the Lebanese government's failure to issue a statement on Bulgarian accusations of Hizbullah's involvement in a deadly attack on Israeli tourists last year.

Miqati told An Nahar newspaper that he issued on Tuesday a statement “setting Lebanon's” stance from Bulgaria's accusations as soon as Sofia blamed Hizbullah for the July 2012 attack on a bus that killed five Israeli tourists at Burgas airport.

A Canadian suspect in last year's fatal bus bombing in Bulgaria was born in Lebanon and only lived in Canada for a few years as a child, Canadian Immigration Minister Jason Kenney said Wednesday.

"My understanding is he came to Canada as a child at the age of eight, obtained citizenship three or four years after that, and left Canada at the age of 12," Kenney said.

The European Union is unlikely to bow to U.S. pressure to brand Hizbullah a “terrorist organization” in the wake of EU member Bulgaria blaming the Lebanese group for an attack that killed five Israeli tourists, diplomats said Wednesday.

New U.S. Secretary of State John Kerry has urged the EU to follow Washington's lead by designating Hizbullah as a terrorist group in a move that will notably lead to a crackdown on its fund-raising activities.

Hizbullah denounced Israel on Wednesday for waging an "international campaign" against it after Bulgaria said the Lebanese party was behind a July bombing that killed five Israeli tourists.

Sheikh Naim Qassem, the group's number two, slammed the "international campaign of intimidation waged by Israel against Hizbullah," and said it is "ever improving its equipment and training" and that "these charges will change nothing."

The March 14 General Secretariat warned on Wednesday that Bulgaria's accusation against Hizbullah in the 2012 bus attack will have political and non-political repercussions on Lebanon, especially if the European Union decided to label the party as a terrorist group.

It said in a statement after its weekly meeting: “The Lebanese people refuse to become hostages of Hizbullah and have their interests compromised.”

Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu has told relatives of victims of last year's attack on Israeli tourists in Bulgaria that those responsible for the killings "will pay the price."

Netanyahu's office said Wednesday in a statement that the head of Israel's counterterrorism bureau told the victims' families in his name that "Israel will do everything so that those responsible for the crime will pay the price."

The European Union now faces the difficult task of dealing with demands to designate Hizbullah as a terrorist organization after Bulgaria announced Tuesday that the Lebanese party was behind a bomb attack in July that killed five Israeli tourists and one Bulgarian.

British Foreign Secretary William Hague said in a statement that the EU should “respond robustly to an attack on European soil.”