EU PLACES SANCTIONS ON IRAN FOR PLOTS TO MURDER

▶ Denmark: action shows Tehran its behaviour won’t be tolerated in Europe

The EU yesterday agreed to impose sanctions against Tehran’s intelligence services for their involvement in assassination plots across Europe last year.

The Foreign Minister of one of the affected countries, Denmark’s Anders Samuelsen, revealed the decision on Twitter, calling it an “important day for European foreign policy”.

Mr Samuelsen said the decision was a “strong signal from the EU that we will not accept such behaviour in Europe”.

An official told The National that the EU Council added two people and an agency to the bloc’s terrorist listing.

Being placed on the list leaves the subject open to measures including the freezing of funds and financial assets, and measures related to police and judicial co-operation.

Danish authorities named the two people as deputy minister and director general of intelligence, Saeid Moghadam, and diplomat Assadollah Assadi.

Assadi, who worked for Tehran’s Ministry of Intelligence and Security in Vienna, was arrested last summer and is in custody in Belgium, where he is facing trial for his role in a bomb plot.

The plot last year to blow up an Iranian opposition rally in Paris was foiled by French police, leading to Assadi’s arrest.

Three others, including a couple of Iranian descent, are also in custody facing trial over the foiled plot, which French intelligence services said was orchestrated by Moghadam.

Belgian police caught the Iranian couple with 500 grams of powerful explosives and a detonator.

In October, Danish police closed access to Copenhagen from the rest of the nation while they searched for a rental car seen near the home of an Iranian opposition member.

The Danish government accused Iranian intelligence services of planning an assassination plot. It recalled its ambassador from Tehran and sought EU assistance.

Also yesterday, the Dutch intelligence service said it had “strong indications that Iran was involved in the assassinations of two Dutch nationals of Iranian origin, in Almere in 2015 and in The Hague in 2017”, Dutch Foreign Minister Stef Blok told parliament by letter.

“The Netherlands considers it probable that Iran had a hand in the preparation or commissioning of assassinations and attacks on EU territory,” Mr Blok said

Dutch police previously named the two victims as Ali Motamed, 56, who was killed in the central city of Almere in 2015, and Ahmad Nissi, 52, who was murdered in The Hague in 2017.

Two members of the Iranian embassy in The Hague were expelled in connection with the murders last summer.

“Some form of punitive response from the EU was very much expected in Tehran,” said Helle Malmvig, a senior researcher at the Danish Institute for International Studies.

“There have been official statements from European leaders threatening some form of response since October, and no secret that Denmark and France and some other European countries have worked hard for this.”

Although the sanctions will have little economic effect on Iran as a nation, they send a

message that its activities are unacceptable, said Axel Hellman, policy fellow at the European Leadership Network.

“From the European perspective, these new measures are primarily about sending a clear and unified message to Iran,” Mr Hellman said.

The EU is still a signatory to the 2015 agreement that limits Iran’s nuclear ambitions in return for a lifting of sanctions on Tehran. But the deal has been put under immense pressure after the US withdrew, insisting its allies did the same.

The EU has led efforts to ensure that the deal is not cancelled. Observers believe it is unlikely that the sanctions announced yesterday would jeopardise the deal, Ms Malmvig said.

“Iran and EU have strong shared interest in not jeopardising the nuclear deal, and the new sanctions are very limited and targeted,” she said.

Mr Hellman agrees this is the most urgent challenge facing the 2015 nuclear deal.

“What matters is whether Europe can come up with ways to protect sufficient levels of trade with Iran under stringent US sanctions, not these other targeted measures that are imposed outside the agreement,” he said.

“That said, maintaining good diplomatic engagement is a prerequisite for that work, and Iranian officials are already frustrated with Europe’s attempts to launch a special purpose vehicle for trade with Iran. Delivering tangible results will be the key focus for now.”