BERLIN – Germany on Monday stressed its policy towards Iran had not changed after its foreign minister held a controversial meeting with President Mahmoud Ahmadinejad over the weekend. “Our international partners know perfectly well that nothing at all has changed in terms of our attitude to Iran,” Chancellor Angela Merkel’s spokesman Steffen Seibert told a regular government news conference.
“We are still very concerned about Iran’s nuclear programme and it is clear that the situation there in terms of human rights and political freedom is unacceptable,” he added. On Sunday, the minister, Guido Westerwelle, travelled personally to Iran to accompany two German reporters back home as they were fined and freed after interviewing the son and lawyer of a woman facing death by stoning.
During his brief stay, the first trip a German foreign minister has made to Iran since Joschka Fischer visited in October 2003, Westerwelle met his counterpart Ali Akbar Salehi as well as Ahmadinejad. Upon his return, Westerwelle told reporters in Berlin that he was relieved the journalists’ ordeal was over and hoped they could “quickly return to a normal life”.
