Iran summoned the German ambassador on Thursday, over differences concerning the situation in the Middle East which continues to escalate.
Alongside the new ambassador Markus Potzel in Tehran, the head of the Austrian mission to the Foreign Ministry was also summoned separately, IRNA state news agency reported.
Summoning an ambassador is considered a strong diplomatic measure.
The step comes after Germany summoned the Iranian ambassador to the Foreign Office in Berlin on Wednesday, in response to Iran’s attack on Israel.
The ambassador was out of town so the chargé d’affaires of the embassy was made aware that the German government condemned the attack in the strongest possible terms.
On Tuesday, Iran fired missiles towards Israel in an attack said to respond to the killings of Hamas leader Ismail Haniyeh and the head of Hezbollah, Hassan Nasrallah. Israel intercepted most of the missiles, aided by the US.
The attack came hours after Israel began a ground operation against Hezbollah targets in southern Lebanon.
The Hezbollah militia in Lebanon and the Palestinian Islamist Hamas movement in the Gaza Strip are part of the so-called Axis of Resistance, a network supported by the Iranian leadership in the fight against Israel.
Israel’s military campaign in Gaza, triggered by the unprecedented October 7 attacks by Hamas, has been accompanied by almost a year of cross-border skirmishes with Hezbollah militants in Lebanon.
However the situation dramatically escalated when Israel launched a massive aerial campaign on targets across Lebanon, with the stated aim of pushing back Hezbollah to enable the return of tens of thousands of residents evacuated from northern Israel near the border.
