The head of Germany’s Jewish community blasted the president of the federal republic, Frank-Walter Steinmeier, for sending a congratulatory telegramme to the Iranian regime to honour the 40th anniversary of the founding of the Islamic Republic.
Dr. Josef Schuster, the chairman of the Jewish community, told the Bild paper, “On the Federal President’s congratulatory telegramme on the anniversary of the revolution in Iran, routine diplomacy seems to have supplanted critical thinking. It is incomprehensible that by the topic of Iran the presidential office apparently lacked the necessary sensitivity. If there was a need to congratulate on this anniversary, the President would at least have to find clear words of criticism of the regime.”
Schuster added “I expect the Federal President to take the next opportunity to make clear to Iran the critical attitude of the Germans in whose name he speaks.”
According to Bild, Steinmeier defended his telegramme to Iran’s president Hassan Rouhani in his Monday conversation with Schuster. The president’s Press Office said congratulating Iran’s regime for its Islamic revolution is “the longstanding state practice of the Federal Republic of Germany.” The Bild paper article termed the Islamic Republic of Iran an “antisemitic regime.”
