Berlin closes Iranian consulates after Tehran executes German national
Germany’s diplomatic relations with Iran have reached “more than a low point,” Foreign Minister Annalena Baerbock said.
BERLIN — All Iranian consulates in Germany are to be closed following the execution of a German-Iranian dual citizen by Tehran, Germany’s Foreign Minister Annalena Baerbock said Thursday.
Jamshid Sharmahd, an opposition activist, was sentenced to death in 2020 by the regime in Tehran on terror charges. He was executed on Monday.
“We have repeatedly made it clear to Iran that the execution of a German citizen will have serious consequences,” Baerbock told reporters. “I have therefore decided to close the three Iranian consulates general in Frankfurt am Main, Munich and Hamburg.”
The closure will affect 32 consular staff members, according to an official from the Foreign Office in Berlin, who said Germany last took such “drastic, but appropriate” measures after Russia’s full-scale invasion of Ukraine in 2022.
The Iranian embassy in Berlin, however, will remain open, as will the German embassy in Tehran. According to the official from the foreign office, Berlin does not want to completely sever diplomatic ties.
Baerbock, meanwhile, said Germany’s diplomatic relations with Iran had reached “more than a low point,” and urged EU members to do more at the European level.
“I am pushing to put the Revolutionary Guards on the terror list in Brussels,” Baerbock said.
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