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Iran is Trying to 'Smuggle' €300 Mn from Germany

German Chancellor Angela Merkel and Chinese Prime Minister Li Keqiang shake hands after a news conference at the chancellery in Berlin, Germany, July 9, 2018. REUTERS/Hannibal Hanschke
German Chancellor Angela Merkel and Chinese Prime Minister Li Keqiang shake hands after a news conference at the chancellery in Berlin, Germany, July 9, 2018. REUTERS/Hannibal Hanschke
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Iran is Trying to 'Smuggle' €300 Mn from Germany

German Chancellor Angela Merkel and Chinese Prime Minister Li Keqiang shake hands after a news conference at the chancellery in Berlin, Germany, July 9, 2018. REUTERS/Hannibal Hanschke
German Chancellor Angela Merkel and Chinese Prime Minister Li Keqiang shake hands after a news conference at the chancellery in Berlin, Germany, July 9, 2018. REUTERS/Hannibal Hanschke

Iran is negotiating to withdraw €300 million in cash from Germany and transfer it to Iran, amid fears of a freeze on its funds in European banks as US sanctions enter into effect next November.

The information came at a time when German Chancellor Angela Merkel said on Monday Germany remains committed to the nuclear non-proliferation agreement with Iran that was rejected by US President Donald Trump, but it was for individual firms to decide if they wanted to invest there.

Speaking alongside China’s Premier Li Keqiang, Merkel said companies, which could risk punitive sanctions from the US if they do business with Iran, must decide for themselves if they wanted to take that risk.

“We remain committed to the nuclear agreement. We think it was well negotiated,” Merkel said, indicating: “there is more that needs to be negotiated with Iran, but we think it is better to stay in the agreement.”

Tehran is seeking to withdraw the funds from the Europaeisch-Iranische Handelsbank AG (eihbank) because it is worried that it could run out of cash when fresh US sanctions against its financial sector take effect, Bild newspaper reported.

Negotiations to get millions out of the European-Iranian Commercial Bank in Hamburg are taking place between senior representatives of the office of the Chancellor, the foreign Ministry and Finance Ministry, and senior representative of the Central Bank of Iran Ali Tarsali.

It is planned that the Bundesbank will remove £300 million and will give the money to the representatives of the Iranian authorities, after which it will be transported from Germany to Tehran aboard an Iranian aircraft.

Iran told the German Financial Supervisory Authority (BaFin) it needed the cash from the accounts “to pass on to Iranian citizens who require cash while travelling abroad, given their inability to access recognised credit cards,” Bild said.

BaFin was now reviewing the request, which had been briefed to senior officials in the chancellery, foreign ministry and finance ministry, the newspaper reported.

The finance ministry had no immediate comment. The Bundesbank, BaFin and the foreign ministry declined to comment.

Also, a spokeswoman for eihbank declined to comment, citing bank secrecy laws.

German Finance Ministry spokesperson stated that this is the first time such a case has been examined. For his part, a spokesman for the German Foreign Ministry said that part of the review concerns whether there are violations of the sanctions through this procedure.

US and Israeli intelligence agencies fear the money could be used to fund armed groups in the Middle East, but German government officials said they had no indications of such plans, Bild reported.

United States has given companies operating in Iran, including Europe, until November to withdraw from the Iranian market or else it will also face US sanctions. Washington has also called on Iranian oil-importing countries to halt imports by November.

The remaining Western European countries, UK, France and Germany, as well as Russia and China have tried to provide economic incentives to Iran to urge it not to withdraw from the deal.

Representatives of these countries met in Vienna a few days ago and made an offer to Iran, which Tehran said was insufficient.

Germany’s foreign minister Heiko Maas said on Friday world powers would not be able to fully compensate for companies leaving Iran due to new US sanctions, but warned Tehran that abandoning its nuclear deal would cause more harm to its economy.

“We will not be able to compensate for everything that arises from companies pulling out of Iran,” Heiko Maas told reporters before a round of talks among the remaining parties to the deal.

Iranian MP Mohammad Dahqan was quoted by the Fars news agency saying that the German government seized a portion of Iran’s foreign exchange assets due to the threat of new US sanctions against Tehran.

"After the US withdrawal from the JCPOA, it seemed wrong to trust Europeans," Dehqan said, according to Fars news agency.

However, Iranian Foreign Ministry rejected reports about blocking part of Iran’s assets in Germany. Iranian Foreign Ministry Spokesman Bahram Qassemi said that the claims on blocking Iranian assets in Germany is a psychological war aimed at undermining the ties between Iran and the European states.

Earlier this year, Iran’s central bank, Bank Markazi, has filed a suit in Luxembourg against Deutsche Boerse’s Clearstream unit seeking to recover $4.9 billion in assets plus interest. Clearstream froze the assets on suspicion of terror financing.

Meanwhile, US ambassador to Germany, Richard Grenell, is trying to attract small and medium business to enter US market rather than the Iranian. He triggered harsh criticism after tweeting “German companies doing business in Iran should wind down operations immediately.”

However, Grenell seems to have changed to a softer approach to his host country than it first appeared. He began engaging business executives with an offer to help them tap the much larger and lucrative US market, according to people briefed on the talks, according to Politico. The Ambassador met with the German Chambers of Commerce and Industry and about a dozen companies to make his pitch.

Some 10,000 small and medium-sized German companies have been investing in Iran since the nuclear deal in 2015, in addition to large companies such as Siemens and Daimler.

The German government is trying to provide guarantees to these companies so as not to withdraw from the Iranian market in face of US pressure and fears of sanctions. But economists expect the withdrawal of the bulk of companies operating in Iran, especially those that have a chance to the US market, which is larger and more important than the Iranian market.

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World

US Senate Sides with Trump in Fresh Vote on Iran War Powers

US President Donald J. Trump arrives for a Senate Republican luncheon meeting, at the US Capitol in Washington, DC, USA, 24 June 2026. EPA/GRAEME SLOAN
US President Donald J. Trump arrives for a Senate Republican luncheon meeting, at the US Capitol in Washington, DC, USA, 24 June 2026. EPA/GRAEME SLOAN
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US Senate Sides with Trump in Fresh Vote on Iran War Powers

US President Donald J. Trump arrives for a Senate Republican luncheon meeting, at the US Capitol in Washington, DC, USA, 24 June 2026. EPA/GRAEME SLOAN
US President Donald J. Trump arrives for a Senate Republican luncheon meeting, at the US Capitol in Washington, DC, USA, 24 June 2026. EPA/GRAEME SLOAN

The US Senate rejected a resolution on Wednesday to rein in President Donald Trump's handling of the Iran war -- an apparent U-turn following pressure from the Republican leader.

The move came just one day after the Senate voted 50-48 to pass a resolution calling for an end to the Iran war, delivering a rebuke to the White House as it seeks to negotiate a lasting deal with Tehran, AFP said.

The legislation is seen as largely symbolic and has little chance of curbing executive authority because Trump has the presidential power of veto.

Trump slammed the Tuesday vote as "poorly timed and meaningless," saying that it made his job more difficult.

The president lashed out on Wednesday at Republican lawmakers during a closed-door lunch on Capitol Hill, US media reported.

Hours later, Republican Senators Rand Paul and Bill Cassidy -- who had called for a check on the president's war on Iran -- changed their stance in the late Wednesday vote to align with Trump, CNN reported.

The Wednesday resolution, which was defeated 50-47, did not nullify or change the outcome of Tuesday's vote.

Trump took a more positive view of Wednesday's result, writing on Truth Social that "This vote puts Iran on notice!"

During his lunch with Republicans on Wednesday, Trump "was mad as a murder hornet," Senator John Kennedy told the New York Times.

Other attendees told the newspaper that Trump aired a long list of grievances and complaints.

World

Iran Accuses NATO of ‘Complicity’ in War

Mark Rutte gestures while delivering a speech during a press conference on the eve of the NATO defense ministers' meeting at the Alliance's headquarters in Brussels (AFP)
Mark Rutte gestures while delivering a speech during a press conference on the eve of the NATO defense ministers' meeting at the Alliance's headquarters in Brussels (AFP)
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Iran Accuses NATO of ‘Complicity’ in War

Mark Rutte gestures while delivering a speech during a press conference on the eve of the NATO defense ministers' meeting at the Alliance's headquarters in Brussels (AFP)
Mark Rutte gestures while delivering a speech during a press conference on the eve of the NATO defense ministers' meeting at the Alliance's headquarters in Brussels (AFP)

Tehran accused NATO on Thursday of "complicity" in the US-Israeli war against Iran, after the bloc's chief noted its support for the United States in the conflict.

Responding to US President Donald Trump's criticism of allies for not supporting the war, NATO boss Mark Rutte told Fox News that hundreds of American planes launched from bases in Italy.

Trump's second term has been marked by tensions with NATO allies, who have voiced skepticism over the need for the conflict in the Middle East.

"Country after country, ally after ally after ally, have made their bases available for Epic Fury," Rutte told US TV channel Fox News, referring to the US military operation in Iran.

"Five hundred US planes took off from US bases in Italy to support Epic Fury," he said, referring the US name for the operation against Iran.

Trump had told Rutte on Wednesday he was "let down" by members of the alliance who did not back his war against Iran.

Rutte also told Fox News that Romania "cut down on commercial air flights and airplanes because they had to use the airports for the tanker facilities" during the Iran war.

Iran's foreign ministry spokesman Esmaeil Baqaei condemned the NATO chief's admission of "active complicity" in the "unlawful war.”

"This is a clear and damning admission of NATO's active complicity in an unlawful war of aggression against a sovereign UN Member State," Baqaei wrote on X.

According to AFP, he accused NATO of "a flagrant violation of peremptory norms of international law and the core principles of the UN Charter.”

Italy was quick to distance itself from Rutte's words, which the defense ministry said gave "a completely misleading message by confusing the type of flights that were authorized.”

It said Italy had allowed only "technical and logistical" US flights during Epic Fury under existing agreements with the United States.

World

The Strait of Hormuz: How Can the World Avert Iran’s ‘Economic Bomb’?

Ships stranded in the Strait of Hormuz (Reuters) 
Ships stranded in the Strait of Hormuz (Reuters) 
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The Strait of Hormuz: How Can the World Avert Iran’s ‘Economic Bomb’?

Ships stranded in the Strait of Hormuz (Reuters) 
Ships stranded in the Strait of Hormuz (Reuters) 

The Prussian military strategist Carl von Clausewitz famously likened war to a chameleon: once unleashed, it develops a momentum of its own. You may start a war, but after the first shot is fired, it begins to dictate events. Its dynamics often outpace the decision-making of political and military leaders alike. As Winston Churchill observed, once war begins, statesmen cease to be masters of events and instead become their servants. The consequences it generates are frequently unforeseen and impossible to control.

History offers abundant proof. Germany entered World War I believing the conflict would be brief and that Paris would quickly fall. Instead, the war lasted more than four years, cost Germany 2.1 million soldiers, and ended with the humiliating Treaty of Versailles. Imperial Russia believed in 1905 that it could expand eastward to secure access to warm-water ports, only to suffer a devastating naval defeat by Japan. That defeat became one of the factors that ultimately contributed to the fall of Tsar Nicholas II during the Bolshevik Revolution of 1917.

Japan, in turn, concluded that as the first Asian power to defeat a major Western state, it could impose its dominance across its region. The result was the attack on Pearl Harbor in 1941, which drew the United States into World War II and ultimately led Washington to use nuclear weapons against Japan.

More recently, Russian President Vladimir Putin appeared to believe that his 2022 “special military operation” in Ukraine would last no more than ten days and that Ukrainian people would welcome Russian troops with flowers. Reality proved otherwise. The war continues. Russia has exhausted much of its military machine, suffered nearly one million casualties — dead and wounded — and damaged both its reputation and its prestige. It has also lost much of its ability to dominate its traditional Near Abroad, long regarded as Russia’s historical sphere of influence. Perhaps the greatest strategic loss has been its transformation from an independent great power into a “junior” player alongside a rising China. Analysts estimate the overall economic cost of Putin’s war between $2.4 trillion and $2.5 trillion.

Israel’s 1982 invasion of Lebanon likewise achieved its immediate objective of expelling and militarily defeating the Palestine Liberation Organization (PLO). Yet Israel was ultimately confronted by another actor: Hezbollah. Iran subsequently developed the “Unity of the Arenas” strategy through a classic Hub-and-Spoke relationship, seeking to surround Israel, establish a deterrence network against it, and gradually wear it down. Within that framework, Tehran’s principal proxy in Gaza drew Iran itself into a war that began on October 7, 2023, and continues today. Even if a future US-Iran agreement is reached, the conflict may well persist, albeit through different methods and instruments.

Last February, the United States and Israel appeared to believe that a swift aerial strike against Iran could fundamentally alter both Iran’s domestic balance of power and the regional strategic equation. Instead, both encountered the classic law of unintended consequences. Their primary objective was to eliminate what they feared was Iran’s path toward acquiring a nuclear weapon through its stockpile of enriched uranium. Yet the conflict revealed another strategic reality: the Strait of Hormuz itself represents an economic equivalent of an atomic bomb for the global economy.

The World’s Strategic Chokepoints

More than one hundred maritime straits exist worldwide, but only a handful occupy a position of exceptional strategic importance.

Foremost among them is the Strait of Hormuz, through which roughly 20 percent of the world’s oil supply — about 20 million barrels per day — passes, in addition to petrochemicals and Qatar’s helium exports, an increasingly important resource for advanced industries, including artificial intelligence. At present, no alternative maritime route exists for shipping Gulf exports to international markets.

The Bab el-Mandeb Strait connects the Red Sea to the Indian Ocean. Nearly eight million barrels of oil pass through it each day, while approximately 12 percent of global trade depends on this waterway.

The Suez Canal forms the shortest maritime link between Europe and Asia and functions as a natural extension of Bab el-Mandeb: if one is blocked, so is the other. The canal generates roughly $4 billion annually for Egypt. Its nationalization by President Gamal Abdel Nasser triggered the 1956 Suez Crisis.

The Strait of Malacca carries more than 60 percent of China’s trade and the bulk of its imported energy. Because the United States dominates the surrounding maritime environment, Chinese strategists have long referred to this vulnerability as the “Malacca Dilemma.” The strait is equally indispensable to Japan, an island nation comprising more than 14,000 islands, and formed part of Imperial Japan’s strategic sphere before World War II.

The Panama Canal, linking the Atlantic and Pacific Oceans as well as America’s eastern and western seaboards, reflected the maritime vision of US naval strategist Alfred Thayer Mahan, whose thinking strongly influenced President Theodore Roosevelt.

Finally, the Bosporus and Dardanelles provide the only maritime outlet to the Black Sea. Around 5 percent of global oil shipments transit these waterways, which are essential not only for Russia but also for Romania, Ukraine, Bulgaria, and Kazakhstan, whose oil exports reach world markets through Russia and the Black Sea.

Taken together, these maritime passages are the arteries of global commerce and energy. Control over them confers strategic influence even without overwhelming naval power. As geopolitical scholar Robert D. Kaplan has argued, the Strait of Malacca is likely to become one of the principal geopolitical theaters of the twenty-first century. Bab el-Mandeb remains Europe’s shortest and least expensive gateway to the Indian Ocean because of its integration with the Suez Canal. Yet the world’s primary strategic center of gravity remains the Strait of Hormuz, for which no true maritime substitute currently exists.

France’s national security strategy illustrates the enduring significance of these chokepoints. Paris sees itself as both a continental and maritime power. In addition to its Atlantic and Mediterranean coastlines, France possesses overseas territories that provide access to every major ocean: French Polynesia and New Caledonia in the Pacific; Mayotte and Réunion in the Indian Ocean; and Guadeloupe and Martinique in the Caribbean. Within this global geography, the deployment of the aircraft carrier Charles de Gaulle near the Strait of Hormuz — officially to support future mine-clearing operations once hostilities cease — together with France’s broader naval presence in the Gulf, reflects a long-term strategy of protecting the world’s vital sea lanes.

Adapting to a New Strategic Reality

The latest regional war has once again demonstrated that the Strait of Hormuz constitutes the strategic center of gravity for the Gulf. Political geographer Saul Bernard Cohen described this region as a geopolitical “shatterbelt” — an area where the interests of great powers intersect and compete continuously, generating chronic instability.

Events since the late 1970s support that assessment. The 1979 Iranian Revolution overthrew the Shah, prompting President Jimmy Carter to announce the Carter Doctrine in 1980, declaring that the United States would use military force if necessary to defend its interests in the Gulf. This was followed by the Iran-Iraq War, the US-led coalition that liberated Kuwait in 1991 after Saddam Hussein’s invasion, the 2003 US invasion that toppled Saddam’s regime, and today’s confrontation involving Iran, the United States, and Israel.

These successive conflicts have disrupted the region’s states’ plans to transform their territory and waters from a geopolitical shatterbelt into a global commercial hub linking East and West. The latest war has undoubtedly complicated those plans. It therefore becomes imperative not only to absorb the shock but also to create strategic alternatives — particularly where the Strait of Hormuz is concerned.

For years, Hormuz represented Iran’s strongest negotiating card in its dealings with Washington. The reopening of the strait became the clearest indication that the latest war had ended. Yet the conflict also demonstrated the urgent need for countries of the region to strengthen their national security while simultaneously developing alternatives that would protect both their energy exports and their broader vision of transforming the Gulf from a geopolitical fault line into a regional hub.

If Hormuz has indeed been Iran’s most valuable strategic card, then the recent crisis also illustrates a timeless principle: once a card is played on the battlefield to improve one’s position at the negotiating table, it inevitably loses some of its strategic value. The strait will reopen, and countries of the region will continue using it. But they will almost certainly accelerate efforts to create alternative export routes because the region’s strategic balance will not return to what it once was. Preparing for worst-case scenarios while continuing to pursue ambitious long-term development strategies has become a strategic necessity.

Accordingly, Gulf energy projects are increasingly focused on diversifying export routes and reducing dependence on vulnerable maritime chokepoints by expanding overland transport corridors and linking major maritime basins. Among the most ambitious proposals is reviving the “Four Seas” vision, connecting the Arabian Gulf, the Caspian Sea, the Black Sea, and the Mediterranean through integrated pipeline networks capable of delivering energy securely to global markets, particularly Europe.

Iraq is pursuing greater logistical flexibility through multiple export options, including studying the revival of a strategic pipeline linking its southern oil fields to Saudi Arabia’s pipeline network. Baghdad also continues to explore restoring the Kirkuk-Baniyas pipeline while maintaining coordination over exports through the Kirkuk-Ceyhan pipeline to Türkiye, thereby expanding its geographical options.

The United Arab Emirates is working to increase the capacity of the pipeline to the Fujairah terminal to as much as three million barrels per day, allowing more exports to bypass the Strait of Hormuz. At the same time, Saudi Arabia and Türkiye seek to revive regional railway links — including the historic Hejaz Railway — connecting the Arabian Peninsula with Türkiye through Jordan and Syria and ultimately extending toward Europe.

The world is entering an exceptionally dangerous period of strategic uncertainty. The balance of power is shifting in unpredictable ways, threatening stability across multiple regions. In such a world, the traditional nation-state is gradually losing ground while non-state actors assume greater influence. Small disruptors, despite their limited capabilities, have become capable of frustrating the strategies of great powers. Even nuclear weapons no longer guarantee deterrence against adversaries that do not possess them. It is a world that has yet to determine what the next international order will look like, or where the new balance of power will ultimately settle.