Scholz Urges Iran to Prevent Military Escalation in the Middle East,
...As German Greens tell EU commission to stop Berlin’s border checks
German Chancellor Olaf Scholz, yesterday, appealed to new Iranian President Masoud Pezeshkian to prevent further military escalation in the Middle East.
A statement from the Chancellery said Scholz told Pezeshkian that: “The spiral of violence in the Middle East must now be broken; anything else would pose an incalculable risk to the countries and people in the region.”
Scholz, who also spoke to Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu at the weekend, expressed concern about the danger of a regional war in the Middle East at this time.
A report by the German News Service (delivered by dpa) disclosed that in a telephone conversation with Pezeshkian, the German Chancellor stressed the need for a ceasefire in Gaza and the return of hostages held by Hamas.
“This would be an important contribution to regional de-escalation,” Scholz was said to have told the Iranian leader.
Fears of an all-out regional war have grown following the targeted killings of two leading figures, one from the Palestinian Islamist group Hamas and the other from the Iran-backed Lebanese Hezbollah militia.
Iran and Hezbollah announced they would undertake massive retaliatory strikes against Israel in response to the killings. The Israeli armed forces have been on the high alert for days.
Scholz’s call followed the United States of America (USA), Israel’s most important ally’s deployment of additional warships and fighter jets to the region, further strengthening its presence there.
Meanwhile, the German Green Party (GGP) politicians have complained about border checks imposed by Interior Minister Nancy Faeser in an open letter to the European Commission.
In another case of bickering among the fractious three-way governing coalition in Berlin, the letter published on Monday, August 12, 2024 and addressed to the European Commission and its president, Ursula von der Leyen, expressed concerns regarding the stationary controls introduced at the borders with Poland, the Czech Republic, Austria and Switzerland.
Members of the Green Party argue that Germany, like seven other EU member states, is not acting in accordance with the rules that regulate movement in Europe’s passport-free Schengen travel area. The free movement of people is one of the fundamental rights enshrined by the European Union.
To check the rising unauthorized migrant entries, Faeser ordered that stationary controls be placed at the land crossings with the Czech Republic, Poland and Switzerland last October and notified the EU commission in Brussels.
Stationary controls with Austria have existed since 2015 and renewed multiple times to limit irregular migration and combat people- smuggling.
The controls are currently set to expire for Switzerland, the Czech Republic and Poland on December 15, 2024 and for Austria on November 11 this year. Controls were also conducted at the border with France during the Olympic Games in Paris and at all German borders during the European Football Championships in June.
Faeser, a Social Democrat, has described the checks as a success. But the letter writers argue a recent analysis of the data showed that the effectiveness of the Interior Ministry’s border measures are “highly questionable and in many cases not statistically proven.”
