Iran’s Foreign Ministry has denounced Germany for its ban on operations by an Iranian airline.
Germany’s Federal Aviation Office sent Tehran-based Mahan Air a notification “ordering the immediate suspension of its authorization to operate passenger flights from and to Germany” from Monday.
The Germans cited security concerns and Mahan’s role in supporting Iranian military involvement in the Syrian conflict.
Ministry spokesman Bahram Qassemi responded on Tuesday that the ban is “unjustifiable, hasty and on the contrary with the spirit of age-old bilateral relations”. He said the step was “based on wrong information provided by those who are not happy with good relations between Tehran and Berlin”.
The German decision followed consultations with European allies and the US, which includes Mahan on a sanctions blacklist.
Chancellor Angela Merkel’s spokesman Steffen Seibert said:
It cannot be ruled out that this airline carries out transports to Germany that affect our security concerns.
This is especially true against the backdrop of terrorist activities, intelligence on terrorist activities from the Iranian side and Iranian entities in Europe in the past.
Earlier this month the European Union sanctioned Iran’s security services and two of its commanders over alleged involvement in assassination attempts against Iranian dissidents in The Netherlands and Denmark, and a bomb plot against a rally in Paris of the National Committee of Resistance of Iran.
Mahan, established in 1992 as Iran’s first private airline, is the Islamic Republic’s second-largest carrier after Iran Air. It operates four services a week between Tehran and the German cities of Düsseldorf and Munich, and also flies to France, Italy, Spain, and Greece.