A photograph taken on October 29, 2024, exhibits an exterior view of the Iranian Embassy in Berlin, Germany, a day after Iran executed 69-year-old German-Iranian Sharmahd, who was sentenced to loss of life in February 2023 for the capital offense of “corruption on Earth.” Iran’s Overseas Minister Abbas Araghchi on October 29 lambasted remarks by his German counterpart Overseas Minister Baerbock criticizing Iranian authorities over the execution of twin nationwide Jamshid Sharmahd. On October 29, Berlin summoned Iran’s cost d’affaires to “convey its sturdy protest towards the actions of the Iranian regime.” (Photograph by John Macdougall / Agence France-Presse)
BERLIN — Germany will shut the three Iranian consulates on its soil in response to the execution of German-Iranian Jamshid Sharmahd, Overseas Minister Annalena Baerbock mentioned Thursday.
“We now have repeatedly and unequivocally made it clear to Tehran that the execution of a German citizen could have severe penalties,” Baerbock mentioned, saying the closure of the consulates in Frankfurt, Munich, and Hamburg in a televised announcement.
The execution, introduced on Monday, had already provoked tit-for-tat diplomatic protests, with Chancellor Olaf Scholz calling it a “scandal.”
“The truth that this assassination occurred within the gentle of the newest developments within the Center East exhibits that (Iran’s) dictatorial, unjust regime… doesn’t act in keeping with regular diplomatic logic,” Baerbock mentioned.
“It’s not with out purpose that our diplomatic relations are already at an all-time low,” she mentioned.
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The closures will have an effect on a complete of 32 consular employees, in keeping with the overseas ministry.
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The Iranian Overseas Ministry responded Thursday night, denouncing the “irrational resolution” that “can’t be justified,” and mentioned it had summoned Berlin’s ambassador to Tehran to convey Iran’s “sturdy protest.”
Baerbock didn’t point out Iran’s embassy in Berlin however mentioned Germany would “proceed to take care of our diplomatic channels and our embassy in Tehran.”
Amongst different causes, this was vital to ensure that the federal government to proceed to press for the discharge of the opposite German residents whom “the regime is unjustly detaining,” she mentioned.
Sharmahd, 69, had been sentenced to loss of life in February 2023 for the capital offense of “corruption on Earth,” a sentence later confirmed by the Iranian Supreme Courtroom.
He had been convicted of enjoying a job in a 2008 mosque bombing within the southern metropolis of Shiraz, wherein 14 individuals had been killed and 300 wounded.
His household have lengthy maintained that Sharmahd was harmless and Amnesty Worldwide mentioned he had been the sufferer of a “present trial.”
However Iran has defended his execution and declared that “a German passport doesn’t present impunity to anybody, not to mention a terrorist legal.”
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Germany can be understood to be pushing for additional sanctions towards Iran on the EU stage.
“In Brussels I’ve been pushing for the Revolutionary Guards to be listed as a terror organisation,” Baerbock mentioned on Thursday.
The EU’s prime diplomat Josep Borrell earlier this week mentioned the bloc condemned Sharmahd’s “killing within the strongest attainable phrases” and was “contemplating measures in response.”
Sharmahd, a German citizen of Iranian descent and a US resident, was a software program engineer who had labored and written for an Iranian opposition group’s web site based mostly overseas that strongly criticised the Islamic republic’s management.
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He was seized by Iranian authorities in 2020 whereas travelling via the United Arab Emirates, in keeping with his household.
