BERLIN —Washington’s envoy to Germany Richard Grenell said Monday his country’s European allies agreed that Iranian General Qassem Soleimani — assassinated last week by the U.S. — was a terrorist threat, but were wrong to focus so much on de-escalation.
The American ambassador, in interviews with German and U.S. media, justified the assassination in Iraq of “a man who was very comfortable with killing and terrorism” — who he stressed had been designated a terrorist by EU members including Germany.
“Taking him out makes the world much safer,” said Grenell, adding that German Foreign Minister Heiko Maas had also “made very clear that General Soleimani was a terrorist and he was on the EU terrorist list.”
In a video interview with Germany’s Bild, Grenell added: “What we’re very pleased to see is that the Europeans share that concern.” Separately, he told the American TV show Fox Business that he was “quite pleased with the way that the German government and members of the [German] parliament have come out.”
“When the West stands together and the West says very clearly that terrorism is wrong and terrorism should not be used, then that message is heard by the Iranians and they see a collective force of the West,” the U.S. diplomat told the German podcast Steingart’s Morning Briefing:
However, referring to calls from European capitals for a de-escalation in the wake of the general’s killing, he added: “The language of just de-escalation is not fair. We have seen the Iranians escalate over the last several months. And there has been no, or I should say little response from the European governments.”
“If you want to de-escalate, and you think that it’s really important to de-escalate, I would say then you must condemn all the way up the ladder of escalation, and that was not done,” Grenell told the podcast. “And so now when the Americans respond, because we are now being threatened, we have to be careful not to put both those situations on a morally equivalent level.”
In a joint statement released late Sunday, the leaders of Germany, France and the U.K. said there was an “urgent” need for de-escalation of the situation in the Middle East, and called on Iran to comply with the nuclear deal.
Grenell also said Americans “don’t want war” with Iran.
His comments came as Germany indicated that Tehran’s announcement on Sunday that it would no longer observe any restriction on the number of centrifuges it can operate, taking another step away from commitments made under the Joint Comprehensive Plan of Action (JCPOA), could spell the end of the 2015 nuclear deal.
The agreement, struck by Tehran, the EU, the U.K., Germany, France, China, Russia and the U.S., before President Donald Trump withdrew from the pact in 2018, was designed to curb Iran’s nuclear program.
Iran’s move, which was “not consistent” with its JCPOA commitments, “could be the first step to the end of this agreement,” Germany’s Maas told Deutschlandfunk radio Monday. But he added that abandoning the deal “would be a big loss so we will weigh this up very, very responsibly now,” and stressed that Berlin would “definitely talk to Iran again.”
NATO held a special meeting of the North Atlantic Council on Monday to address the situation in the Middle East.
This article was updated with further comments from the U.S. ambassador.