An Iranian intelligence service and two of its staff have been penalised after Iran was accused of being behind plots to assassinate regime dissidents on Dutch, French and Danish soil, and of orchestrating other terror plots in Europe. The two employees hit by the EU sanctions have been named as the deputy minister and director general of intelligence, Saeid Hashemi Moghadam, and a Vienna-based diplomat, Assadollah Asadi. Their names were due to appear in the EU’s Official Journal today.
Moghadam is in Iran, while Asadi was charged and is being held by Belgian authorities. Neither appear to have assets in France.
The move remains highly sensitive for Europe, as it marks the first time the bloc has imposed sanctions on Iran since removing a raft of economic constraints on it three years ago following its nuclear deal with six world powers.
The fruit of more than a decade of negotiations, the nuclear pact to curb Tehran’s nuclear ambitions in exchange for the lifting of debilitating economic sanctions was signed in July 2015 by the United States, France, Britain, Germany, Russia, China and Iran.
Donald Trump has since pulled the US out of the deal, and the EU has been struggling to uphold it ever since. It has been less willing to consider sanctions than Washington, instead seeking talks with Tehran.
Iran has threatened to withdraw from the deal and relaunch its nuclear programme if EU powers do not protect its trade and financial benefits.
Tuesday’s decision to impose the sanctions was taken without debate at a meeting of European ministers in Brussels and the asset freeze comes into effect on Wednesday, according to EU officials.
The decision, which includes designating the intelligence unit and the two Iranians as “terrorists”, follows a recent disclosure by Denmark and France that they suspected an Iranian government intelligence service of plotting assassinations on their soil.
Danish Foreign Minister Anders Samuelson said on Twitter: “The EU just agreed to enact sanctions against an Iranian Intelligence Service for its assassination plots on European soil. Strong signal from the EU that we will not accept such behaviour in Europe.”
France, which slapped its own sanctions on the two men and ministry unit late last year, has said there was no doubt Iranian intelligence officials were behind a thwarted terror attack in Paris.
On Tuesday, the Dutch government publicly accused Iran of the plots, as well as two killings in 2015 and 2017, sending a letter to parliament warning of further economic sanctions if Tehran refused to cooperate with ongoing European investigations.
The letter, signed by the Dutch foreign and interior ministers, said Britain, France, Germany, Denmark, the Netherlands and Belgium had met with Iranian officials to express “their serious concerns regarding Iran’s probable involvement in these hostile acts on EU territory”.
The letter said: “Iran was informed that involvement in such matters is entirely unacceptable and must be stopped immediately … further sanctions cannot be ruled out”.
Iran, for its part, has denied involvement in the alleged plots, saying the accusations were designed to undermine EU-Iran relations.
“Accusing Iran won’t absolve Europe of responsibility for harbouring terrorists,” Iran’s Foreign Minister Mohammad Javad Zarif tweeted on Tuesday.
“Europeans, including Denmark, Holland and France harbour MEK,” he added, referring to the exiled Iranian opposition group, Mujahedin-e-Khalq.
While Paris has accused Tehran of a plot to carry out a bomb attack at a rally near Paris organised by the MEK in June, Denmark says it foiled an Iranian intelligence plan to neutralise an Iranian Arab opposition leader on its soil.
Dutch officials, for their part, said on Tuesday they had “strong indications” that Iran was behind the assassinations of two Dutch nationals of Iranian origin in 2015 and in 2017.
The latter was dissident Iranian Arab activist Ahmad Mola Nissi who was shot dead by an unidentified assailant in front of his home in The Hague. Iran denies any involvement in the killings.