EU to counter Iran's "harassment" of embassy staff

Reuters ^ | Sun Jun 28, 2009 9:51pm IST | Dina Kyriakidou and David Brunnstrom

[Ernest_at_the_Beach]

CORFU, Greece (Reuters) - The European Union on Sunday condemned Iran's crackdown on post-election protesters and said the EU would meet any Iranian intimidation of European diplomatic staff with a "strong and collective response".

Swedish Foreign Minister Carl Bildt, whose country takes over the EU presidency from Wednesday, said the Iranian government had been weakened at home and abroad.

"Obviously the regime is trying to preserve its position by very harsh repression. But that cannot hide the fact that this is a weakened regime. It has lost legitimacy both internally and externally," Bildt said.

EU foreign ministers were meeting on the Greek island of Corfu to review strategy towards Iran, where mass protests over alleged vote rigging in a June 12 presidential election have prompted crackdowns by police and Islamic militia.

The ministers urged Iran to swiftly release several Iranian employees of Britain's Tehran embassy and a Greek journalist detained as alleged instigators of the street unrest.

"The EU calls on Iran and its authorities to stop hostilities against EU member states as well as (the) EU's partner countries and their citizens," said Foreign Minister Jan Kohout of the Czech Republic, the current EU president.

"The EU strongly denounces arbitrary arrests and repression against members of the civil society," he said.

"(We) made clear to the Iranian authorities that harassment or intimidation of foreign and Iranian staff working at EU embassies (in Tehran) will be met with a strong and collective EU response," Kohout said, reading a joint communique. 

[Ernest_at_the_Beach]

Close of the article:

**********************EXCERPT***********************

The Group of Eight industrialised powers on Friday deplored the violence stemming from Iran's police sweep against protesters but kept the door open for Iran to enter into talks on reining in its secretive nuclear programme.

[Ernest_at_the_Beach]

Another strongly worded letter being sent I suppose.

[kromike]

I’m sure Iran is just so intimidated by “strong responses”.

[blam]

A strong and collective response.

Boo!

[Ernest_at_the_Beach]

I can tell... you are not impressed....LOL!

[tflabo]

When EU nations together launch bombs on Iran’s nuke facilities then our ears will perk up! Otherwise just hit the ‘Snooze’ button.

[colorado tanker]

Oh, they may really have crossed the line now. Maybe they'll call a Security Council meeting. That’d show ‘em!

[Dallas59]

Lol....about as bad if not worse than 0bumas position...

[Ernest_at_the_Beach]

Going into snooze mode....be back later.

[JimSEA]

"Obviously the regime is trying to preserve its position by very harsh repression. But that cannot hide the fact that this is a weakened regime. It has lost legitimacy both internally and externally," Bildt said.

Similar statements have been made in the face of brutal repression elsewhere (ie. Burma) but the repressive regimes usually prosper in the way their leaders desire.

[AlphaOneAlpha]

“Maybe they’ll call a Security Council meeting. That’d show ‘em!”

For a one-two punch, we can have Junior give one of his classic apology speeches. He can close by saying this entire misunderstanding was caused by Bush and the Jews

[pnh102]

Wow... Gordon Brown really is going down as the UK’s Jimmy Carter.

[Man50D]

The EU needs a robust debate with Iran.

[SunkenCiv]

That’ll l’arn ‘em! :’)

[Marine_Uncle]

And zero stays quiet through it all. No use doing anything foolish. After all zero and his crew seem to still be in campaign mode. Their marketing types like BJClinton. Of little real substance unless it can make them out to be the champions of the downtrodden, the lame, the sick, the halt(sp?).
And the world leaders well understand what to expect from these clowns.