Iran on Notice: Baerbock Vows Action Over German National’s Execution
The regime of the Iranian mullahs executed the German citizen Djamshid Sharmahd. German politicians are responding with sharp rhetoric.
Djamshid Sharmahd is dead. The German citizen was executed by the Iranian regime after he was kidnapped while on a business trip in Dubai in 2020 and then held prisoner for years without trial. Read more about this here.
The assassination of the German-Iranian state also caused reactions at the highest levels of federal politics. Foreign Minister Annalena Baerbock (The Greens) said in a statement on Monday that she condemned Sharmahd’s execution “in the strongest possible terms.” Killing him shows how inhumane it is in Tehran.
Baerbock also explained that the Foreign Office has campaigned daily for Sharmahd’s release over the past few years. A high level team has been sent to Iran several times. “We made it clear to Tehran that the execution of a German citizen would have serious consequences,” the statement said. He did not specify what the Foreign Minister’s results meant.
The chairman of the CDU, Friedrich Merz, who had taken political sponsorship for the man who was killed, is also calling for measures against the Iranian regime. He described the execution of the German-Iranian on the short message service X as a “horrific crime.”
Merz called for tough measures against Iran. “The Iranian ambassador must be expelled,” the politician wrote. In addition, the federal government should downgrade diplomatic relations with Tehran to the level of chargé d’affaires. “In addition, the federal government must advocate for tougher measures against the Iranian authorities at the European level,” continued Merz.
Merz said he had criticized the diplomatic approach the German government had sought in recent years in relation to relations with Tehran. “Germany’s Iran policy in recent years has been shaped by the idea of a cooperative government in Tehran,” he writes on Twitter. “This illusion should be stopped at the latest with the execution of a German citizen in an illegal procedure.”