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German ambassador
to Iran gets a grilling over Berlin plaque |
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TEHRAN, April 21
(AFP) - Germany's ambassador to Iran was called into the foreign
ministry here Wednesday for an angry grilling over a plaque put up in
Berlin in memory of four Iranian Kurds shot dead in an attack
officially blamed on Tehran.
The official news agency IRNA said Germany's envoy, Baron Paul von
Maltzahn, was informed of Iran's "strong objection" to the plaque
unveiled the previous day in Berlin's upmarket Charlottenburg
district.
The plaque marks a 1992 attack in the Mykonos restaurant, and carries
the victims' names and the words: "Murdered by the then regime in
Iran. They died fighting for freedom and human rights".
IRNA said the foreign ministry official charged with European affairs,
Ali Ahani, "ruled out claims that Tehran was involved in the Mykonos
incident" and "voiced regret" that officials in Berlin "had been
influenced by disinformation campaigns and attempts to sabotage
Iran-German ties."
He denounced the move as "unacceptable and contrary to the spirit of
bilateral relations".
A German court concluded in 1997 that the killers of the four were
acting on Tehran's orders, prompting Berlin to recall its ambassador
and the European Union to suspend dialogue with the Islamic republic
for a year.
In retaliation for the placing of the plaque in Berlin, Tehran's
conservative-controlled city council decided to erect one of its own
denouncing Germany for supplying chemical weapons to former Iraqi
leader Saddam Hussein, with whom Iran fought a bitter war from
1980-1988, a council member said.
"The world has not forgotten the violence of the Germans during the
Second World War ... and Germany is reviled by our people for
supplying chemical weapons to Iraq" during the 1980-1988 war,
Amir-Reza Vaez Achtiani was quoted by student news agency ISNA as
saying. |
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