The German government imposed according to a media report, new sanctions against Iran. Reason is the suspicion that the intelligence service of the country committed assassinations in Europe and have more planned, reported the „Süddeutsche Zeitung“ (Monday issue), NDR and WDR.
According to this, the Federal Aviation Office in Braunschweig will suspend the operating permit for the Iranian Mahan Airline this week. The company flies weekly from Tehran three times Düsseldorf and once Munich. The Federal Foreign Office had stated on request that „no information“ was given on „internal political coordination processes“.
Flight ban goes beyond EU sanctions
Mahan has been on a US sanction list since 2011, and for years now the US government has been forcing its allies to block Mahan’s operations. Its director, Hamid Arabnedschad Chanooki, is said to have close ties to the Iranian Revolutionary Guards. According to US data, fighters, weapons and ammunition are flown to Syria with the Mahan machines, according to the reports.
The EU had already imposed sanctions on Tehran earlier this month. The flight ban would go beyond this. According to findings of the intelligence services and judicial investigations, the Iranian intelligence service is likely to have committed two murders in the Netherlands in recent years and planned attacks, for example in Paris and Denmark.
