In retaliation for the expulsion of two Iranian diplomats from Germany, Tehran expelled two German diplomats from the country on Wednesday. The Foreign Ministry in Tehran announced that the two German diplomats would be declared undesirable persons because of “German government interference in internal and legal affairs” in Iran.
A week ago, the Federal Foreign Office in Berlin declared two Iranian embassy employees undesirable because of the death sentence imposed on the German-Iranian Jamshid Sharmahd in Iran. They were “requested at short notice” to leave Germany, as Federal Foreign Minister Annalena Baerbock (Greens) announced on Wednesday last week. She had also summoned the charge d’affaires of the Iranian embassy.
Iran’s reaction “is in no way justified from the point of view of the Federal Government,” according to a statement by the Foreign Ministry. It was an arbitrary decision by Tehran. The expulsion of two Iranian diplomats, on the other hand, was an appropriate reaction “to Jamshid Sharmahd’s death sentence and massive violation of his rights,” it said.
The Iranian judiciary had sentenced the 67-year-old exile opposition figure and German national to death on charges of terrorism. In particular, the Iranian judiciary accuses Sharmahd of being involved in an attack on a mosque in the southern Iranian city of Shiraz in April 2008, which killed 14 people. Sharmahd’s family and supporters had urged the federal government to stand up for the 67-year-old and “save his life”.
