Iranian authorities will erect a plaque outside the German embassy tomorrow denouncing Germany's contribution to former Iraqi president Saddam Hussein's chemical-weapons arsenal, in the latest tit-for-tat measure in a diplomatic spat between Berlin and Iran's clerical leaders, the official IRNA news agency said.
Tehran's conservative-controlled municipality gave the order on April 27 to put up the plaque, in a direct response to the unveiling the week before of a plaque in Berlin denouncing Iran for the 1992 murders there of four Kurdish dissidents.
"We will put up the plaque to commemorate the chemical-weapons victims in front of the German embassy on Friday," city council head Mehdi Chamran was quoted as saying by IRNA.
The ceremony will be attended by the members of the Tehran City Council, the government and military officials and veterans of the bloody 1980-1988 war against Iraq who were victims of chemical weapons.
Chamran added that the purpose of the plaque was to "support the chemical-weapons victims and to condemn the German government who sold the technology and the weapons of mass destruction to the Baathist regime of Saddam."
"Germany and the other oppressing countries are collectively responsible for these crimes and we want the Germans to ask questions of their government," Chamran added.
He also insisted that, "the German government must apologize to the Iranian nation, especially to the victims of the chemical weapons and their families."
Nearly a month ago, local officials in Berlin's Charlottenburg district unveiled a plaque marking the 1992 attack in the Mykonos restaurant.
It carries the victims' names and the words: "Murdered by the then regime in Iran. They died fighting for freedom and human rights."
A German court concluded in 1997 that the killers of the four Iranian Kurds were acting on Tehran's orders.
The decision prompted the German government to recall its ambassador and the EU to suspend dialogue with the Islamic republic for a year.
Asian perspectives of the US have shifted from a country once perceived as a force of “moral legitimacy” to something akin to “a landlord seeking rent,” Singaporean Minister for Defence Ng Eng Hen (黃永宏) said on the sidelines of an international security meeting. Ng said in a round-table discussion at the Munich Security Conference in Germany that assumptions undertaken in the years after the end of World War II have fundamentally changed. One example is that from the time of former US president John F. Kennedy’s inaugural address more than 60 years ago, the image of the US was of a country
‘UNUSUAL EVENT’: The Australian defense minister said that the Chinese navy task group was entitled to be where it was, but Australia would be watching it closely The Australian and New Zealand militaries were monitoring three Chinese warships moving unusually far south along Australia’s east coast on an unknown mission, officials said yesterday. The Australian government a week ago said that the warships had traveled through Southeast Asia and the Coral Sea, and were approaching northeast Australia. Australian Minister for Defence Richard Marles yesterday said that the Chinese ships — the Hengyang naval frigate, the Zunyi cruiser and the Weishanhu replenishment vessel — were “off the east coast of Australia.” Defense officials did not respond to a request for comment on a Financial Times report that the task group from
BLIND COST CUTTING: A DOGE push to lay off 2,000 energy department workers resulted in hundreds of staff at a nuclear security agency being fired — then ‘unfired’ US President Donald Trump’s administration has halted the firings of hundreds of federal employees who were tasked with working on the nation’s nuclear weapons programs, in an about-face that has left workers confused and experts cautioning that the Department of Government Efficiency’s (DOGE’s) blind cost cutting would put communities at risk. Three US officials who spoke to The Associated Press said up to 350 employees at the National Nuclear Security Administration (NNSA) were abruptly laid off late on Thursday, with some losing access to e-mail before they’d learned they were fired, only to try to enter their offices on Friday morning
STEADFAST DART: The six-week exercise, which involves about 10,000 troops from nine nations, focuses on rapid deployment scenarios and multidomain operations NATO is testing its ability to rapidly deploy across eastern Europe — without direct US assistance — as Washington shifts its approach toward European defense and the war in Ukraine. The six-week Steadfast Dart 2025 exercises across Bulgaria, Romania and Greece are taking place as Russia’s invasion of Ukraine approaches the three-year mark. They involve about 10,000 troops from nine nations and represent the largest NATO operation planned this year. The US absence from the exercises comes as European nations scramble to build greater military self-sufficiency over their concerns about the commitment of US President Donald Trump’s administration to common defense and
RSS