EU member states have given their support to imposing fresh sanctions on Tehran if its military backing for Russia’s war in Ukraine is proved in the wake of attacks on Kyiv allegedly using Iranian-made drones.
In talks on Monday, the bloc’s foreign ministers reached an in-principle consensus on sanctioning Tehran for supplying Shahed 136 “kamikaze” drones to Moscow if it obtains incontrovertible evidence they are being used against Ukraine, as Kyiv has insisted.
Witnesses said the explosions that struck Ukraine’s capital on Monday morning were preceded by a humming noise similar to a loud lawnmower engine, a description that suggests the Shahed 136 drones may have been used.
The Kyiv City State Administration said 28 drones had been sent to attack the capital, with five reaching their targets, suggesting Ukraine’s air defences had downed many of them before they could do any damage.
“A large group of member states were in favour of sanctions,” Dutch foreign minister Wopke Hoekstra told the Financial Times after the Luxembourg meeting. “All evidence, or all things that we have seen, clearly suggests [Iran’s] involvement.”
According to Ukrainian officials, Russia has increasingly deployed the Iranian drones to target infrastructure across Ukraine in recent weeks, sending them in swarms to make it harder for them to be targeted by Ukrainian air defence.
“We are gathering evidence and we are ready to react with the tools at our disposal,” said Josep Borrell, the EU’s chief diplomat, after Monday’s meeting that included intelligence assessments on the attacks and a discussion on the bloc’s response.
“These [sanctions] processes have to be based on evidence. Evidence exists, it has been provided by the relevant intelligence services,” Borrell added. “Once all the evidence is available, and there is a lot already, I don’t think there will be any problem of future steps taken by member states.”
Numerous ministers at the meeting called for action against Iran, citing its “obvious” involvement in the war, according to two people briefed on the talks, who added that EU leaders could agree to take more steps at a summit at the end of the week.
Tehran has denied that its drones are being used by Russia in the war.
Denmark’s foreign minister Jeppe Kofod told reporters on Monday the apparent use of Iranian drones to attack central Kyiv was “an atrocity”, adding that the EU must “react strongly . . . and take concrete steps”.
France’s foreign ministry said last week that “a supply of Iranian drones to Russia” would violate a 2015 UN Security Council resolution that permitted the Iranian nuclear deal with other global powers that lifted a swath of economic sanctions on Tehran.
In Monday’s attacks, the white, V-shaped drones carrying payloads of up to 30kg targeted buildings in central Kyiv, their noisy engines humming along like mopeds, which is what the Ukrainian forces now call them.
Ukraine’s air force said it had shot down 15 of the kamikaze drones on Monday morning that were heading for targets in the south and east of the country.
The allegations of Iranian military support to Russia, as well as western criticism of Tehran’s recent crackdown on protests, threaten to further complicate diplomatic efforts to revive the nuclear accord.
Talks to revive the deal have been deadlocked for weeks, with the US and its European allies accusing Tehran of intransigence amid frustrations that Iran did not agree to a draft agreement proposed by the EU in August.
The EU, which is mediating talks between the US and Iran, has said that the discussions are being kept completely separate from other bilateral issues, including sanctions, and has no bearing on the bloc’s actions.
On Monday, EU foreign ministers agreed a new package of sanctions against 11 Iranian individuals and four entities linked to Tehran’s crackdown on protesters and the death of 22-year-old Mahsa Amini last month in the custody of the country’s morality police.
Credit: Source link
