Germany should ban the import of Iranian products, the head of the German-Israel Society said.
Johannes Gerster issued his statement Sept. 21 in Berlin, three days before Iranian President Mahmoud Ahmadinejad was to visit the United Nations in New York City. The society criticized the United Nations for hosting the Iranian leader and called on Germany to put more pressure on Iran through economic sanctions. Germany, Iran’s largest trading partner, should use its “growing influence to push through a third round of sanctions,” Gerster’s statement read in part. He said two previous U.N. sanctions had been shown to have some effect. Gerster decried the fact that the United Nations was providing an international platform for Ahmadinejad, who “terrorizes his own people and treads on human rights as in practically no other country.” He also said the Iranian leader “destabilizes the entire Mideast with weapons, money and training camps, inciting international terrorism, and wants to destroy Israel” and “also threatens its neighbors and tries to blackmail Europe through the threat to build atomic bombs.”
He added that Germany by banning Iranian products would send a signal to other European countries and “hit hard at the Iranian regime.”
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