An Iranian government official denied on Monday that Tehran was involved in the assault on author Salman Rushdie, in remarks that were the country's first public comments on the attack.

The comments by Nasser Kanaani, the spokesman of Iran's Foreign Ministry, come over two days after the attack on Rushdie in New York.

Salman Rushdie is "on the road to recovery," his agent has confirmed, two days after the author of "The Satanic Verses" suffered serious injuries in a stabbing at a lecture in New York.

The announcement followed news that the lauded writer was removed from a ventilator Saturday and able to talk. Literary agent Andrew Wylie cautioned that although Rushdie's "condition is headed in the right direction," his recovery would be long. Rushdie, 75, suffered a damaged liver and severed nerves in an arm and in an eye that he was likely to lose, Wylie had previously said.

U.S. District Attorney Jason Schmidt has told a court judge that Hadi Matar took steps to purposely put himself in position to harm "The Satanic Verses" author Salman Rushdie, getting an advance pass to the event where the author was speaking and arriving a day early bearing a fake ID.

The man accused of stabbing Salman Rushdie at a literary event has pleaded not guilty to attempted murder charges, as the severely injured author appeared to show signs of improvement in hospital.

The man who stabbed the author Salman Rushdie in New York state, Hadi Matar, was born in the U.S. to Lebanese parents who emigrated from the southern border town of Yaroun, the town’s mayor, Ali Tehfe, told The Associated Press and Lebanese media outlets.

“He has never visited Lebanon,” Tehfe added.

Author Salman Rushdie is in hospital with serious injuries after being stabbed by a man at an arts festival in New York state on Friday. The following article was published on the 30th anniversary of the release of The Satanic Verses.

One of the most controversial books in recent literary history, Salman Rushdie's "The Satanic Verses," was published three decades ago this month and almost immediately set off angry demonstrations all over the world, some of them violent.

Iranians reacted with praise and worry Saturday over the attack on novelist Salman Rushdie, the target of a decades-old fatwa by the late Supreme Leader Ayatollah Ruhollah Khomeini calling for his death.

It remains unclear why Rushdie's attacker, identified by police as Hadi Matar of Fairview, New Jersey, stabbed the author as he prepared to speak at an event Friday in western New York. Iran's theocratic government and its state-run media have assigned no motive to the assault.

Friday's knife attack on Salman Rushdie comes more than 33 years after the fatwa against him by Iran's supreme leader Ayatollah Ruhollah Khomeini, in which he sentenced him to death.

Here are key dates in the life of the British writer Salman Rushdie: 

French President Emmanuel Macron said his country stood with Salman Rushdie Friday as the British author underwent surgery after being stabbed at a literary event in the United States.