BRUSSELS: EU countries have agreed sanctions on Iran following its brutal crackdown on protests over Mahsa Amini’s death and foreign ministers are to adopt them next Monday, diplomats said.
Earlier on Wednesday European Commission chief Ursula von der Leyen said “now is the time to sanction those responsible” in Iran “for the repression of women.”
“This shocking violence cannot stay unanswered,” she said.
Four EU diplomats told AFP that political agreement was reached Wednesday on the sanctions and that the foreign ministers’ meeting to be held in Luxembourg next Monday was to officialize them.
There were no details on the impending sanctions, but the United States, Britain and Canada have already separately targeted security branches of the Iranian regime.
The United States and Britain have imposed sanctions on Iran’s so-called morality police, who arrested 22-year-old Amini last month.
She was taken unconscious from a police station to hospital where she died.
Her family, the protesters in Iran, Western officials and rights groups have all called her death a “killing.”
Iran denies that and says she died of natural causes related to childhood surgery.
Canada last week said it will permanently deny entry to more than 10,000 members of the Iranian regime, including those belonging to the Islamic Revolutionary Guard Corps which is leading the repression.
EU lawmakers have been calling for the bloc to put Iranian officials, including those linked to the morality police, on a blacklist prohibiting travel into Europe and freezing any assets in the EU.
The European Union in April 2011 already imposed sanctions on Iran for human rights violations, with more measures added in March 2012 to halt the sale of any equipment the regime might use to repress or electronically spy on the Iranian population.
The latest European sanctions will land at a delicate moment, given that the EU plays a coordinating role in talks aimed at reviving a 2015 deal that curbed Iran’s nuclear activities.
Those talks are in an impasse, EU foreign policy chief Josep Borrell has said.
EU agreement to sanction Iran over protest crackdown
https://arab.news/rn2ck
EU agreement to sanction Iran over protest crackdown
- European Commission chief said “now is the time to sanction those responsible” in Iran “for the repression of women“
- There were no details on the impending sanctions
Israel agrees to ‘limited reopening’ of Rafah crossing: PM’s office
- The announcement came after visiting US envoys reportedly pressed Israeli officials to reopen the crossing, a vital entry point for aid into Gaza
JERUSALEM: Israel said Monday it would allow a “limited reopening” of the Rafah border crossing between Gaza and Egypt once it had recovered the remains of the last hostage in the Palestinian territory.
The announcement came after visiting US envoys reportedly pressed Israeli officials to reopen the crossing, a vital entry point for aid into Gaza.
Reopening Rafah forms part of a Gaza truce framework announced by US President Donald Trump in October, but the crossing has remained closed after Israeli forces took control of it during the war.
The Israeli military also said it was searching a cemetery in the Gaza Strip on Sunday for the remains of the last hostage, Ran Gvili, a non-commissioned officer in the police’s elite Yassam unit.
Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu’s office said the reopening would depend on “the return of all living hostages and a 100 percent effort by Hamas to locate and return all deceased hostages,” Netanyahu’s office said on X.
It said Israel’s military was “currently conducting a focused operation to exhaust all of the intelligence that has been gathered in the effort to locate and return” Gvili’s body.
“Upon completion of this operation, and in accordance with what has been agreed upon with the US, Israel will open the Rafah Crossing,” it said.
