German Chancellor Angela Merkel warned Iran on Tuesday to uphold the stipulations of the 2015 nuclear deal or else face repercussions.
“We are pushing for Iran to keep to [the nuclear accord]. If that is not the case, there will, of course, be consequences,” she said, without specifying what the ramifications would be.
“That’s why there must finally be an end with the appeasement, the talk of Iranian partners, an agreement that supposedly makes the world safer. The current Iranian government, the mullahs, are not partners. For us and for our most important allies, they are only one thing: a threat,” wrote Bild journalist Maximilian Kiewel.
While Germany has sanctioned Iranian airline Mahan Air, it has taken favorable steps towards the Islamic Republic, it helped create the Instrument in Support of Trade Exchanges, or Instex, a financial mechanism, to evade U.S. economic penalties on Tehran.
Last week, the German parliament rejected a bill to ban Hezbollah, an Iranian proxy, from the country.