{"id":235369,"date":"2021-02-23T09:02:33","date_gmt":"2021-02-23T14:02:33","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.ncr-iran.org\/en\/?p=235369"},"modified":"2023-02-01T05:11:05","modified_gmt":"2023-02-01T04:11:05","slug":"demands-for-accountability-from-iran-intensify-as-eu-foreign-ministers-convene","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.ncr-iran.org\/en\/news\/terrorism-a-fundamentalism\/demands-for-accountability-from-iran-intensify-as-eu-foreign-ministers-convene\/","title":{"rendered":"Demands for Accountability From Iran Intensify as EU Foreign Ministers Convene"},"content":{"rendered":"

\"demands-for-accountability-from-iran-intensify-as-eu-foreign-ministers-convene\"<\/p>\n

On Monday, foreign ministers from the European Union\u2019s member states gathered in Brussels for wide-ranging policy discussions. The meeting naturally drew advance commentary from various policymakers and political groups with strong attitudes regarding existing policies. A good deal of that commentary was related to the Iranian regime, which is a perennial source of controversy within Western policy circles and has lately been thrust back into the spotlight by the news of a terrorism trial in Belgium.<\/p>\n

That trial concluded on February 4 with guilty verdicts for four Iranian operatives who attempted to coordinate the bombing of an Iranian expatriate gathering just outside of Paris. The principal defendant, Assadollah Assadi<\/a>, was third counsellor at the Iranian embassy in Vienna at the time of the 2018 plot. The trial established that he had personally smuggled 500 grams of TATP explosive into Europe while traveling on his diplomatic passport in order to evade normal scrutiny from airport security.<\/p>\n

Those explosives were ultimately confiscated from two of Assadi\u2019s co-conspirators while they were trying to travel from Belgium into France. Had the attack gone forward as planned, it is generally believed that it would have killed hundreds of attendees at the crowded event<\/a>, which was attracted as many as 100,000 Iranian expatriates from across Europe and the world at large. The prime target for the attack was the Iranian Resistance leader Maryam Rajavi<\/a>, who delivered the keynote speech at the event in fairly close proximity to hundreds of lawmakers, scholars, and other political dignitaries who attended to show support for the cause of Iranian democracy.<\/p>\n

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An Iranian diplomat convicted to 20 years imprisonment by a court in Belgium - February 2021<\/div><\/div>
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