German Chancellor Urged to Abandon Iran Talks by Exiled Iranian Prince Reza Pahlavi

BERLIN — Reza Pahlavi, the exiled son of Iran’s last shah, called on German Chancellor Friedrich Merz to abandon talks with Tehran as European leaders prepared to gather in Cyprus for a crisis summit with the war in Iran high on the agenda.

Pahlavi — whose father’s repressive rule helped ignite the 1979 revolution and who has since emerged as a prominent, though deeply contested, opposition figure — made the remarks during a controversial visit to Berlin on Thursday, where he was scheduled to meet with German lawmakers. The comments follow Merz’s decision, announced earlier this month, to resume diplomatic talks with Iran in an effort to help end the war.

“If your governments continue to focus only on somehow maintaining the status quo, you’re neither helping us liberate ourselves, nor are you truly addressing the concerns that you will have down the line,” Pahlavi told reporters in Berlin. “It should be the prerogative of democratic governments not to be dictated [to] by a bunch of thugs and terrorists.”

European leaders are gathering in Cyprus Thursday for a high-stakes summit focused largely on the fallout from the U.S.-Israeli war with Iran, now entering its eighth week under a shaky ceasefire. European leaders are split over how to respond to a conflict that has destabilized energy markets and strained relations with the U.S.

Pahlavi, who has presented himself as a leader capable of steering a transitional administration, called on EU leaders to apply more pressure on the regime in Tehran. “There are a lot of things that Europe can do that it hasn’t,” he said. “Nothing has been done by putting more pressure on the regime to stop executions. Nothing has been done to force them to release political prisoners.”

Pahlavi was set to meet German lawmakers, including Armin Laschet, the head of the foreign affairs committee in the Bundestag and a member of Merz’s conservatives.

Following his appearance at the federal press conference venue in Germany’s government district, Pahlavi was splashed with a red liquid by a protester. Police detained a man after the incident and said he was being questioned about his identity and motive. The police added that he was not previously known to them. Initially, authorities described the incident as an attack involving a tomato but later said only that a red liquid had been thrown. Pahlavi’s team said it was tomato sauce.

Iranian state media broadcaster on Thursday shared a video where exiled crown prince Reza Pahlavi was seen getting attacked with tomato ketchup. In a 47-second clip posted by IRNA, it was seen that Pahlavi was exiting a building in Berlin when he was attacked by a man who threw a red liquid on his back. The man was soon grabbed by security members as Reza Pahlavi was escorted to a car standing ahead of several people waving flags of Iran.

Pahlavi said there were no pragmatists or reformers among Iran’s current leaders, saying they were simply “different faces of a regime.” Claiming that 19 political prisoners were executed by Iranian authorities in the past two weeks, he asked if the “free world will do something or watch the slaughter in silence?” The former Crown prince has put himself forward as someone who could lead a democratic transition in the event that Iran’s leadership is toppled.