The Austrian Ambassador to Iran Stefan Schultz, who holds a doctorate in political science, has been managing the Vienna Embassy in Tehran for more than three years.
The remarkable thing about him is that he has taken business trips to 25 Iranian provinces so far and none of them have been done for the purpose of sightseeing or pleasure. An issue that he himself has acknowledged in his press conferences.
During his trips, he met Iranian businessmen and naturally obtained an accurate estimate of the capacities, problems, and shortcomings of each province.
Now the question is why the Austrian Ambassador to Tehran has made such trips during the COVID-19 pandemic?
Basically, with what justification did the ambassador of a foreign country make this number of domestic trips? Is this practice common in other countries as well?
The more significant question is the level of Iran's economic relations with Austria amid sanctions, which required the country's ambassador to travel to 25 Iranian provinces and meet with Iranian businessmen.
It is should be noted that after the US unilateral withdrawal from the Nuclear Deal, Western intelligence services have been making great efforts to gain accurate information on the impact of sanctions on various economic sectors and the methods of circumventing them.
Given the focus of the Austrian ambassador on gathering economic information from different provinces, one cannot ignore the hypothesis that these trips can be used to assess the impact of sanctions on Iran’s economy.
It seems that the unusual travels of the Austrian ambassador should be investigated by the responsible organizations.
It is worth mentioning that two years ago and just before the visit of the Iranian President to Austria, the German government arrested one of the diplomats of the Iranian Embassy in Austria claiming that he was planning a terrorist act, and the Austrian government did not adopt any action to release him due to diplomatic immunity.
By Mehdi Hosseini
FA/5099628
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