Diplomats: EU open to Iran sanctions after Iran jihad attacks foiled in France, Denmark

Did they think embracing jihad and the most brutal, racist and extreme ideology on the face of the planet was somehow going to work out for them? They railed against President Trump for sanctioning the murderous regime and yet here we are.

You can avoid reality but you cannot avoid the consequences of avoiding reality. And for Europe, reality bites.

Diplomats: EU open to Iran sanctions after foiled France, Denmark plots

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Reuters, November 22, 2018 (thanks to Inexion):

BRUSSELS- European Union foreign ministers showed cautious support on Monday for possible new economic sanctions on Iran in a shift of policy after accusations of Iranian attack plots in France and Denmark, diplomats said.

Denmark and France briefed their EU counterparts at a meeting in Brussels on the alleged plots and ministers agreed to consider targeted sanctions on Iranians in response, although no details or names were discussed, five diplomats told Reuters.

Though still at an early stage, the EU’s readiness to penalize Iranians would be the first such move in years after months of internal division over how to punish Iranians accused of destabilizing activities in Europe and the Middle East.

Until now, the EU has been straining to uphold the 2015 nuclear accord between Iran and world powers that U.S. President Donald Trump pulled out of in May. It has been less willing to consider sanctions, instead seeking talks with Tehran.

Iran has warned it could ditch the nuclear deal if EU powers do not protect its trade and financial benefits.

France has already imposed sanctions on two Iranians and Iran’s intelligence service over what it says was a failed plot to carry out a bomb attack at a rally near Paris organized by an exiled Iranian opposition group. One option is to establish those asset freezes at an EU-wide level, diplomats said.

Denmark, which in October said it suspected an Iranian government intelligence service had tried to carry out an assassination plot on its soil, is also open to EU-wide sanctions, the diplomats told Reuters.

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In October, France said there was no doubt that Iran’s intelligence ministry was behind the June plot to attack the demonstration by Iranian exiles near Paris.

It froze assets belonging to Tehran’s intelligence services and two Iranian nationals – a Vienna-based diplomat now under arrest in Belgium for the plot and the deputy minister and director general of intelligence, Saeid Hashemi Moghadam.

Neither appear to have held any assets in France. Paris also discreetly expelled an Iranian diplomat, diplomatic sources told Reuters last month.

Iran has denied any involvement in either alleged plot.

Under the 2015 deal, Iran restricted its disputed nuclear program, widely seen in the West as a disguised effort to develop the means to make atomic bombs, in exchange for an end to international sanctions against it.

MISSILE SANCTIONS DIDN’T FLY

In March, Britain, France and Germany proposed to sanction Iran over its development of ballistic missiles and its role in Syria’s war, but the initiative failed to gather sufficient support across the EU to take effect.

Italy was one EU country unwilling to countenance new measures as it sought to preserve business ties with Iran.

In an effort to balance Iran policy, the ministers at their meeting on Monday also tried to press ahead in setting up a special mechanism to trade with Iran that could be under EU, not national, law.

The Special Purpose Vehicle (SPV) is a kind of clearing house that could be used to help match Iranian oil and gas exports against purchases of EU goods in an effective barter arrangement circumventing U.S. sanctions, which are based on global use of the dollar for oil sales.

Despite technical difficulties and delays, the EU believes this formula could shield individual member states from being hit by U.S. sanctions that have been reimposed on trade with Iran after Washington’s pullout from the nuclear deal.

“There is a willingness for the financial vehicle … to be set up quickly,” French Foreign Minister Jean-Yves Le Drian told reporters.

However, no country has come forward as a potential host. Their reluctance arises from fears that SPV reliance on local banks to smooth trade with Iran may incur U.S. penalties, severing the lenders’ access to U.S. markets, diplomats said.

Luxembourg is seen as a good candidate to manage the Ira

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Liatris Spicata

5 years ago

EU open to Iran sanctions after Iran jihad attacks foiled in France, Denmark

Hey EU-

Just depends on whose ox is being gored, doesn’t it now.

And by the way, whose help was so critical to heading off those murders?

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Dennis

5 years ago

Having any confidence in the EU actually coming to grips with the clear and present danger represented by the Islamic world, and especially Iran, is difficult at best. Those leaders have already allowed the so-called refugees from the Arab world to overrun their societies. They refuse to recognize that these refugees are simply from societies that have taught them for over 1400 years that their society must be dominant and their laws are to prevail, all of which makes their ability to assimilate into these new countries impossible. The reality is that those people insist on ghettoizing and live under their own rules, making assimilation a non-happening. I believe that they have created their own monster and that Europe is lost, and I doubt that they will now ever be able to save their indigenous societies from the wrath of Islam.

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overboosted ✓ᴰᴱᴾᴸᴼᴿᴬᴮᴸᴱ

5 years ago

As usual, Trump is right – again.

As Bolton said – sanction them until the pips squeak.

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Alleged-Comment

5 years ago

The West calling for it’s own destruction and rightly so.

They have rejected the blessings of the most High. It’s as if they know what they did was wrong and cannot be allowed to live.

Now they are asking their own enemies to DESTROY them. You DO reap what you sow.

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AlgorithmicAnalyst

5 years ago

The fundamental problem is that they don’t understand that the basis of their perception and worldview is projection. Being civilized people themselves, they projected civilized values onto muslims, and expected muslims to behave in a civilized way.

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joan flaherty

5 years ago

Reply to  AlgorithmicAnalyst

More – Anthropomorphism

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