France Denounces 'State Hostage-Taking' by Iran
The French government on Tuesday accused Iran of adopting a policy of "state hostage-taking" and "blackmail," intensifying calls for the release of a French couple detained for the past two years.
The French government on Tuesday accused Iran of adopting a policy of "state hostage-taking" and "blackmail," intensifying calls for the release of a French couple detained for the past two years.
The condemnation by France highlights a rare and escalating conflict between Iran and Western nations over detained foreign nationals.
Cecile Kohler, a teacher and head of the National Federation of Education, Culture and Vocational Training (FNEC FP-FO), and her partner Jacques Paris, also a member of the same trade union, were arrested on May 8, 2022. They are accused by Iranian authorities of inciting labor protests, charges both their families and the French government deny. The couple had traveled to Iran as tourists, visiting Tehran, Kashan, and Isfahan before their arrest while attempting to return to Paris from Tehran’s Imam Khomeini Airport.
"France condemns this policy of state hostage-taking and this constant blackmail by the Iranian authorities," stated the French foreign ministry. The strong stance comes as activists continue to point out Iran's pattern of detaining Western nationals to leverage concessions.
Apart from Kohler and Paris, other French citizens detained in Iran include Olivier, known only by his first name, and Louis Arnaud, a banking consultant sentenced last year to five years in jail on national security charges. France's foreign ministry reiterated its call for their "immediate and unconditional release" and extended its concerns to all European nationals facing what it described as "absurd charges" in Iranian custody.
The ministry also condemned the Iranian practice of airing forced confessions, a tactic Kohler and Paris were subjected to following their arrest. The method of coercion and the sham trials are seen as part of a broader strategy by Iran, criticized internationally for its judicial processes.
While several foreign prisoners, including five Americans, have been released in recent months through diplomatic negotiations, European citizens continue to be held. Among them are German citizen Jamshid Sharmahd and Swedish national Ahmadreza Djalali, both facing the death penalty under charges their families and international observers claim are baseless.
Sharmahd, a 69-year-old California resident, was abducted in 2020 while in the United Arab Emirates and later sentenced to death by Iran on allegations of leading a pro-monarchist group linked to a 2008 bombing. Despite prior arrests and convictions related to the incident, Sharmahd’s charges are maintained without substantive evidence, drawing criticism from human rights organizations like Amnesty International for the lack of fair trial standards.
Swedish EU diplomat Johan Floderus is another high-profile detainee, facing possible death sentences on disputed spying charges. This comes amid heightened tensions following the life imprisonment in Sweden of former Iranian prison official Hamid Nouri for his involvement in mass executions during the 1980s in Iran.
During Grossi’s last visit to Iran in March last year, the International Atomic Energy Agency (IAEA) and the Iranian government agreed on a statement on how Tehran can increase cooperation with the IAEA. Despite Tehran's sweeping assurances to the UN nuclear watchdog, little progress was made.
Iran committed to cooperating with a long-stalled investigation into discovering uranium particles at undeclared sites and reinstalling removed monitoring equipment. However, IAEA reports to member states indicated that these assurances did not translate into significant actions.
Amidst intense media questioning, Grossi explained his two-day visit to Iran: “My intention was twofold, to re-engage, to have a serious conversation, and to start analyzing a number of concrete proposals that could fit into the different areas that this joint statement covers.”
“There is this expectation that there will be a touch of a magic wand. And we will solve issues. I'm sorry, it's impossible,” he told the press conference.
Without going into the details of Iran’s and IAEA’s expectations, Grossi confirmed that lifting sanctions is one of Iran's demands to cooperate with the agency but that he is: “not the one who has the key to solving these issues” because those problems are outside the scope of his responsibilities.
Hours before Grossi returned to Vienna, he also held a news conference with Iran's atomic chief, Mohammad Eslami, who called the talks “positive and productive.”
Iran's apparent satisfaction with IAEA visits, while failing to keep any promises, is becoming so repetitive that a journalist asked Grossi whether Iran was selling him the same horse again.
Since the end of November, Iran has been enriching uranium to a purity of up to 60%, which is close to around 90% of weapons-grade uranium. The IAEA estimates that this material could be used to make two nuclear weapons if it were enriched further.
Iran has also hindered the IAEA's ability to perform its duties. The IAEA faces numerous challenges, including Tehran's failure to explain uranium traces discovered at undeclared sites and its exclusion of almost all its top enrichment experts.
However, this isn't the first time Iran has enriched uranium to this level. In April 2021, Iran, as a first, began enriching uranium to this level - its highest purity ever and a technical improvement.
Under the Joint Comprehensive Plan of Action (JCPOA) signed in 2015 between Iran, China, France, Russia, the UK, the US, and Germany, Tehran curbed its nuclear program in return for lifting international sanctions.
Iran gradually began to move beyond the nuclear restrictions of the JCPOA after former US president Donald Trump withdrew from the agreement in 2018 and reimposed sanctions that crippled its economy.
As part of his criticisms of the deal, Trump stated that it wasn't permanent; the restrictions on Iran's nuclear program began to relax about ten years after the agreement was signed (although the commitment not to develop nuclear weapons is permanent). Moreover, the deal did not address Iran's other problematic activities, including its development of ballistic missiles and its support for violent militias in the region.
After Joe Biden defeated Trump in the 2020 US presidential election, he attempted to revive the deal through indirect negotiations in Vienna, but without any significant success, except a short-lived slowdown of Iran’s enrichment in May last year. That was when the Biden administration, through a Qatar-mediated deal, swapped five detainees with Iran and released $6 billion of Tehran's funds in South Korea.
The Biden administration's cautious stance on Iran casts doubt on the strength of the IAEA's position regarding Iran's unfulfilled promises, as Tehran continues to enrich Uranium at high levels and refuses to cooperate with international measures to curb its nuclear activity.
