Federal Foreign Minister Annalena Baerbock spoke by phone to Iranian Foreign Minister Hussein Amirabdollahian for the first time in a year and a half. The Foreign Office announced via Twitter successor X that yesterday’s exchange dealt with a number of topics on which “different attitudes” were discussed.
“The exchange was open, clear and clear.” A particular focus of the Foreign Minister’s conversation, who is currently traveling to the USA, was on “German consular cases”. It was Baerbock’s first conversation with the Iranian since the Munich Security Conference in February 2022.
“It was an open, but it was also a very direct and clear conversation. That’s what we need,” said Baerbock on the sidelines of a visit to the Federal Air Force’s Tactical Training Command in Wichita Falls, Texas. “Due to the sensitivity,” she “cannot say anything about details of the German consular cases in individual cases.”
German-Iranian sentenced to death
Several Germans are imprisoned in Iran. This includes the German-Iranian Nahid Taghavi, who was arrested in October 2020 and then convicted of “propaganda against the state”.
Another German-Iranian, Djamshid Sharmahd, was sentenced to death on terror charges. There are fears that Iran will actually carry out the death penalty. Sharmahd’s relatives vehemently deny the allegations. Baerbock had called on Tehran to reverse the “absolutely unacceptable” verdict.
Relations between Germany and Iran are tense. After the nationwide protests in the fall of 2022, Baerbock openly expressed criticism of the violent actions of the Iranian state power. In the meantime, the words from Tehran also became more severe. Iranian politicians have repeatedly accused the Federal Republic of interfering in the internal affairs of the Islamic Republic.
