GERMANY ALREADY "IN THE CHOIR" ON IRAN

C O N F I D E N T I A L BERLIN 001143 SIPDIS E.O. 12958: DECL: 09/16/2019 TAGS: KNNP MNUC PARM IAEA IR PREL AORC SUBJECT: GERMANY ALREADY "IN THE CHOIR" ON IRAN REF: A. STATE 95073 ¶B. BERLIN 1118 Classified By: Political M/C George Glass for reasons 1.4 (b/d) ¶1. (C) The Ambassador called German MFA Political Director Stanzel September 15 to discuss reftel on expanding the chorus on Iran. Stanzel thanked the Ambassador for the update and said Germany agreed with our message and was taking similar action with only subtle differences. Stanzel added that he agreed it was good to broaden the group dealing with Iran on the margins of UNGA. ¶2. (C) Separately, Poloff delivered reftel demarche to MFA Iran Task Force Director Andreas Krueger September 14. Krueger replied that the U.S. was "preaching to the choir" with respect to Germany. He thanked Poloff for letting him know that we would be doing similar demarches around the world and noted that he thought they might be particularly useful in some of the smaller EU capitals and with members of the nonaligned movement. He added that as FM Steinmeier had told Ambassador Murphy September 13 (ref B) Germany remained particularly concerned with Russia and hoped President Obama might personally appeal to his Russian counterpart prior to the UNGA meetings. In addition, he said Chancellor Merkel had been working hard - and with success - within her government, to secure support for additional sanctions prior to UNGA. Murphy