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In Wake of IRGC Spying Incident, AJC Asks Germany to Expel Iranian Ambassador

by TheTower.org Staff |

The news reported earlier this week that German police are seeking ten Iranian agents tied to the Islamic Revolutionary Guard Corps (IRGC) has prompted the American Jewish Committee (AJC) to call on Germany’s foreign ministry to expel Iran’s ambassador, Benjamin Weinthal reported Wednesday in The Jerusalem Post.

Germany’s government protested to Iranian Ambassador Ali Majedi following the conviction of a Pakistani man for spying on Jewish interests in the country. The ambassador was told that “spying on people and institutions with a particular relationship to the state of Israel on German soil is a blatant violation of German law.”

“We expect clear political steps. Diplomatic dialogue alone is not enough here. We need a clear public measure,” said Deidre Berger, director of the AJC’s Berlin office. “The expulsion of the ambassador [Ali Majedi] would be an important first signal.”

The Israeli embassy told the German newspaper, Bild, “we again see how active the Iranian regime in Europe and Germany is. It maintains an infrastructure for terrorism.”

Daniel Schwammenthal, director of the AJC Transatlantic Institute, speaking of the IRGC plot to spy on Jewish and Israeli interests in Germany, assessed that “this is nothing short of a hostile act against an EU member state by the world’s foremost state-sponsor of terrorism. There can be no more business as usual for the EU with Iran.”

In 1992 Iranian agents killed four dissidents in the Mykonos cafe in Berlin.

The BfV, Germany’s federal intelligence agency, warned in 2015 that Iran was still trying to procure illicit technology for its nuclear and ballistic missile programs, despite then-ongoing nuclear negotiations with world powers. German intelligence also reported in 2016 that Iran sought to procure nuclear-related materials in at least half of Germany’s states and was involved in attempts to advance the Islamic Republic’s chemical and biological weapons capabilities. Last year, German intelligence reported that Iran made at least 32 attempts to acquire proliferation-related technologies, possibly in violation of the 2015 nuclear deal.

[Photo: MC EU TV / YouTube]

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