Albanien bricht diplomatische Beziehungen zu Iran ab

Albanien hat seine diplomatischen Beziehungen zum Iran abgebrochen. Die Hintergründe der Entscheidung erklärt Seth Frantzman in der Jerusalem Post:

Iran has carried out terror attacks around the world, it has targeted dissidents for kidnapping and assassination and Iran attacks ships in international waters and generally Iran believes it has impunity to violateevery international law. This impunity appeared to continue until this week when Iran suffered a diplomatic setback. Albania severed diplomatic ties with Iran and ordered Iranian embassy staff to return to Tehran, according to reports. Albania is outraged over a cyber-attack. 

Albania says it has "incontrovertible evidence" that Iran "hired four groups to mount the attack on Albania" on 15 July. Iran’s pro-regime media has slammed Albania’s decision as an “anti-Iranian action of the Albanian government.” Iran says the claims that it was behind cyber attacks are “baseless.” Iran blames “third parties” for the incident. As is usual for Iran and its pro-IRGC media, Iran has said that “Zionists” are behind the controversy.  (...)

Albania’s decision to stand up to Iran is important. It shows that countries are beginning to recognize the seriousness of Iran’s actions. This actions of Albania have also resulted in support from the US. The US has worked alongside Albania to confront the cyber threat and the US has also concluded that Iran was behind the July 15 cyber attack. The US says Iran has disregarded the norms of how a peacetime state is supposed to behave. However, Iran’s overall actions illustrate that it continues to feel impunity for these kinds of attacks. The question now is whether this recent incident will result in more countries standing up to Tehran.