POLITICS-MIDEAST: Defrosting EU Relations with Iran

By IPS Correspondents Reprint | | Print |

Analysis - Yojana Sharma

BERLIN, Feb 24 1999 (IPS) - European Union countries have reacted cautiously to the decision by Iran’s Supreme court to quash a death sentence imposed on German businessman Helmut Hofer for having an affair with an Iranian woman.

The Hofer case has hindered a faster rapprochement between the EU and Iran since moderate president Mohammad Khatami came to power and sought to improve ties with the west.

Chancellery Minister Bodo Hombach declared the Iranian judgement, announced Feb 20, was “the beginning of a normalisation of relations”, between Iran and Germany. Other EU diplomats, however were more cautious.

Iranian courts usually “take note” of political factors, said one diplomat. “It is too early to talk of a real detente with Teheran.” Other analysts also believed Hofer was not yet out of the woods.

Iran has blown hot and cold on another sensitive European issue, the ‘fatwa’ against British author Salman Rushdie, which hindered a swifter improvement in ties between London and Teheran. Britain nonetheless decided to proceed carefully towards normalisation with Teheran despite a stalemate on the Rushdie affair.

Germany has been less willing to lay the matter to rest, seeing the Hofer affair as an important human rights test case and also an important issue regarding the treatment of German businessmen in Tehran.

Hofer was sentenced to death in 1998 under Iran’s Islamic laws which forbids sex between a non-Moslem man and a Muslim woman. However four male witnesses must testify to the act.

Hofer’s case was dismissed by the Iranian Supreme court for lack of witnesses but was sent back to another Iranian court for a new hearing and left EU diplomats unwilling to celebrate.

Germany’s relatipons with Iran were further muddied when a German man was kidnapped last week , then killed during a botched rescue attempt by security forces.

The German foreign office declined to speculate on groups responsible or their motives, describing it merely as a “criminal act.” However, there was a belief here that fundamentalist groups may well be attempting to prevent any rapprochement between Teheran and the West.

It was the Hofer case that severely strained relations between Iran and German which had already been affected by the trial of an Iranian citizen Kazem Dharabi, who was jailed in Germany for his involvement in political assassinations in Berlin in 1992.

But the real chill between Iran and Europe began in April 1997 when a German court found that the murders of three Iranian dissidents at a restaurant had been ordered by figures at the highest levels of the Iranian government, including Iran’s spiritual leader Ayatollah Ali Khamenei.

More than 60 murders of Iranian dissidents have been reported in Europe since the 1979 Iranian revolution but this was the first time a European court explicitly blamed the Teheran government of sponsoring international terrorism.

It led directly to the withdrawal of the German ambassador. The EU followed suit by withdrawing all their ambassadors, with the exception of Greece.

In recent months Khatami, keen to attract western investment, has been eager to repair relations. But with fundamentalists still a force to be reckoned with in Iran, Khatami has so far attached conditions to normalisation.

In particular, Teheran has been demanding the release of Dharabi, which the German government has rejected. Recently there had been speculation, strenuously denied by Bonn, that some kind of swap deal may be negotiated with Iran involving Dharabi and Hofer.

Publicly Bonn has only said that despite recent improvements in the climate between the two countries, relations with Teheran would worsen considerably if Hofer is executed.

An EU diplomat here noted that the supreme court decision “at least precludes for the time being a worsening of relations.”

The new governing coalition in Germany, like the previous conservative government, has been anxious to work towards a solution in the Hofer case. Like Britain, Italy and France, Germany has been eager to set relations with Iran on a new footing, particularly with regard to trade.

Hombach is expected to travel to Teheran in the near future to discuss the Hofer case, among other issues, and prepare the ground for a groundbreaking visit to Europe by Khatami in mid-March.

Iranian foreign minister Kamal Kharrazi visited Paris in late June last year, and France reciprocated with a visit in August by French foreign minister Hubert Vedrine. Italy last year also sent a senior minister to Tehran.

The main reason for these visits was economic, according to analysts. France is the second largest European importer of Iranian petroleum with imports worth more than one billion dollars in 1997.

The French oil company Total has also invested more than 420 million dollars in Iran’s Siri oil field after the US company Conoco withdrew follow Washington’s economic embargo. France is also building an oil pipeline from the Caucasus to the Persian Gulf.

Germany too has economic as well as political reasons for improving relations with Teheran as last year, Germany was Iran’s second largest foreign investor after South Korea.

In recent days Germany has found another important reason for patching up its rift with Iran.

Militant Iranian organisations are believed to be harbour the Kurdish organisation the PKK (Kurdish Workers Party), allowing PKK members up to eight days refuge on Iranian soil and the storing of PKK weapons and ammunition according to a recent report in Germany’s “Der Spiegel” magazine.

Although the Khatami government reportedly was not privy to the secret deal between the PKK and the Iranian hardliners (Pasdaran), the arrest of PKK leader Abdullah Ocalan last week sparked off massive Kurdish protests around Europe. Three Kurdish protesters were shot outside the Israeli consulate in Berlin.

Germany which is home to the largest Kurdish minority in Europe, numbering some 500, 000 is keen to prevent more violent Kurdish protests on its soil, and is hoping to influence Tehran to restrict Kurdish activities.