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A missile test in Iran: The regime is developing carrier systems - also for the transport of nuclear bombs in the future?
Photo: - / AFP
The International Atomic Energy Agency issued a warning a few days ago: Iran is planning a "significant" expansion of uranium enrichment.
Chancellor Olaf Scholz has now emphasized that the West still aims to prevent the country from acquiring nuclear weapons.
"Everything must be done to ensure that Iran does not get any nuclear bombs or any carrier systems with which they can transport them," he said on Friday evening in Berlin.
»This is one of the central political goals that Germany and France have been pursuing together with their allies, the USA and Great Britain.
We will continue to adhere to that.«
The background is that Iran had announced uranium enrichment to a purity level of 60 percent.
This is considered a way to produce weapons-grade uranium.
Scholz added that the situation is very difficult and depressing.
The persecution of Iranian demonstrators who strive for freedom as individuals and society is also depressing.
In view of the violent crackdown on demonstrators in Iran, Federal President Frank-Walter Steinmeier has called for those responsible to be held accountable.
The right to peaceful assembly and freedom of expression, like all human rights, applies universally, Steinmeier said on Friday.
Anyone who “violently tramples on these rights must be held accountable”.
The actions of the authorities in Iran are "inhuman," declared the Federal President.
"Even children are victims of the Iranian regime's excessive violence."
The "brave people" of Iran deserve equality, dignity and rights.
Germany stands by their side.
Steinmeier said he was glad that the United Nations Human Rights Council "had a clear position with a large majority."
The UN body decided on Thursday to conduct an independent investigation into the actions of the security forces against the protests in Iran.
25 of the 47 member states voted in favor of a resolution tabled by Germany and Iceland at a special session of the Council in Geneva.
The government in Tehran sharply criticized the decision and declared that Iran "resolutely rejects" the resolution of the UN Council.
Tehran also accused Germany and other countries that supported the resolution of spreading "false and provocative allegations of violations of the rights of men, women and children" in Iran.
In Iran, numerous people have been taking to the streets against the leadership in Tehran for weeks.
The trigger was the death of the young Kurdish woman Mahsa Amini in mid-September - she had previously been arrested by the moral police because she is said to have worn her headscarf improperly.
The authorities are reacting to the protests with increasing severity.
dop/AFP/Reuters
