Germany Shuts 3 Iranian Consulates Over Execution of German-Iranian

The German government said on Thursday that it was closing three Iranian consulates in response to Iran’s execution this week of a German-Iranian dual citizen, which Germany’s foreign minister called an “assassination,” as tensions grow between the West and Tehran.

“We have repeatedly made it unmistakably clear to Tehran that the execution of a German national will have serious consequences,” Annalena Baerbock, Germany’s foreign minister, said as she announced the closing of the consulates in Frankfurt, Hamburg and Munich. Ms. Baerbock, speaking in New York, noted that she recently discussed the case directly with Abbas Araghchi, Iran’s foreign minister.

The execution of Jamshid Sharmahd, 69, came as war rages between Israel and Iran-backed forces Hezbollah and Hamas, conflicts that have led Iran and Israel to launch the most serious strikes against each other in a long history of hostility. Western countries have tried to keep the conflict from escalating into a full-fledged war between Iran and Israel.

“The fact that the assassination has now taken place in light of the latest developments in the Middle East shows that a dictatorial regime of injustice like that of the mullahs does not act following normal diplomatic logic,” Ms. Baerbock added.

Shutting down multiple consulates is rare and shows how seriously Germany has taken the execution. The only other time Germany has closed so many consulates of a single country was last year, when it shut five of Russia’s six consulates after Russia expelled several German diplomatic staff members.

On Monday, the Iranian government announced that it had executed Mr. Sharmahd, who it claimed helped orchestrate a deadly terrorist bombing in the Iranian city of Shiraz in 2008. Mr. Sharmahd, who had been living in the United States, was abducted while visiting Dubai in 2020 and taken to Tehran, according to his family. There he was convicted in what human rights organizations and the German government called a show trial.