Iran slams German official for urging renewed sanctions
Iran’s Foreign Ministry has blasted Germany’s commissioner tasked with combating antisemitism told The Jerusalem Post that Chancellor Angela Merkel’s administration should withdraw from the Iran nuclear deal and re-impose sanctions on Tehran for its nefarious conduct.
The Iranian regime-controlled PressTV wrote that “in an online statement on Wednesday, Foreign Ministry spokesman Abbas Mousavi condemned the remarks by Uwe Becker, commissioner of the Hessian federal state government for Jewish life and the fight against antisemitism.”
PressTV added that “Becker on Monday called on German Chancellor Angela Merkel to put Israel’s security above ‘possible economic interests’ that comes with the deal – known as the Joint Comprehensive Plan of Action (JCPOA).”
Becker, the commissioner of the Hessian federal state government for Jewish life and the fight against antisemitism, told the Post on Monday that “the current escalation with Israel should be reason enough for Germany to [abandon] the... Iran nuclear agreement, which has been undermined by Iran... [as] dead, and for the necessary sanctions against Tehran to become effective again in their entirety.”
He urged the EU and Germany to re-impose economic sanctions against Iran’s regime.
“If Germany takes its reason for state [raison d’État] seriously, it must immediately freeze its relations with Iran and thus send a clear and unequivocal signal to the Iranian leadership,” Becker said. “It is not a question of a policy against the Iranian people, who are even deprived of important freedom rights by their own government, but of a clear position towards the political leadership in Tehran.”
“The only way to bring calm back to the Middle East and end all escalations in the region was by countering Israel’s aggression,” Mousavi said, according to PressTV.
PressTV played a role in the torture of the then-Newsweek journalist Maziar Bahari during the 2009 Green Movement protests against an alleged fraudulent presidential election in Iran.
PressTV updated its article on Thursday, stating, “Iran has censured Germany for supporting the Israeli regime in its crimes in Palestine, Lebanon and Syria, calling on Berlin to stop turning a blind eye to the realities of the Middle East region.” The Post retained copies of both versions of the PressTV articles. While the first article, with its title, “Iran slams German official’s call for abandoning nuclear deal, cutting Tehran ties,” focused on Becker, the second article was titled, “Iran lambastes Germany for supporting Israeli crimes.”
According to the second version, “In an online statement on Wednesday, Foreign Ministry spokesman Abbas Mousavi condemned a Tuesday statement by the German Federal Foreign Office that underscored the German government’s support for the Tel Aviv regime and called for Iran’s ‘practical steps to de-escelate [sic] tensions’ in the region.”
PressTV said, “The German statement was issued in reaction to remarks made by the chief commander of Iran’s Islamic Revolution Guards Corps (IRGC), who said on Monday the Israeli regime is on its path toward collapse.”
The Iranian regime outlet appears to be referring to a German statement that criticized IRGC Gen. Hossein Salami’s genocidal statement calling for Israel to be destroyed.
“This sinister regime must be wiped off the map and this is no longer... a dream (but) it is an achievable goal,” Salami had said.
The publisher for the daily Berlin paper Tagesspiegel, Stephan-Andreas Casdorff, issued a rare call among German journalists for the Merkel administration to impose sanctions on Iran’s following the regime’s latest call for the obliteration of the Jewish state.
The German Foreign Ministry faced criticism in February, for celebrating Iran’s revolution at Tehran’s embassy in Berlin. Niels Annen, a controversial undersecretary of state, who has been accused bias toward the Jewish state and the United States, said he had “no regrets” about celebrating the Islamic revolution. Merkel’s government is widely considered Iran’s strongest supporter within the EU. Merkel permitted government representatives to appear at pro-Iran regime business forum last month in Berlin that the US ambassador to Germany, Richard Grenell, said boosted Tehran’s terrorism.
The US government classifies Iran’s regime as the top state-sponsor of terrorism. Merkel’s spokesman, Steffen Seibert, did not immediately respond to a Post press query about Iran’s angry outburst targeting Becker.