Iran's activities across the Middle East threaten to drive another wave of refugees to Europe, Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu said after talks with German Chancellor Angela Merkel on Monday.
"This will inflame a religious war, and the consequences will be many more refugees and you know exactly where they'll come," Netanyahu told Merkel at a joint press conference.
In 2015, Germany and other European countries saw an influx of more than a million migrants, many of them refugees from a civil war in Syria, fueling the rise of far-right parties with anti-immigration platforms.
In Syria, Shiite Iran is a crucial military ally of Syrian President Bashar Assad against rebels, who are mainly Sunni.
Iran seeks to expand its presence across the Middle East and deploy Shiite militias it commands to convert Muslims from the Sunni branch of Islam, Netanyahu said at the news conference.
Netanyahu, on a tour to persuade European countries to follow U.S. President Donald Trump's lead and withdraw from a 2015 nuclear non-proliferation deal with Iran (also called the Joint Comprehensive Plan of Action), said Iran was using funds derived from eased sanctions to finance conflict.
As it will be difficult for European powers to preserve the 2015 nuclear deal following U.S. President Donald Trump's withdrawal, another aim of Netanyahu's trip is preparing for the deal's apparently impending collapse.
Merkel said she agreed that Iran's activities in the Middle East were a concern, particularly for Israel's security. But she said talks and the precarious nuclear agreement offered ways of thwarting Iran's nuclear and regional ambitions.
"We support Israel's right to security and have said this to Iran all along," she said. "We have the same goal that Iran must never get a nuclear weapon. The difference between us is how to do that."
"Germany did not leave the [Iran nuclear] deal, along with other European partners," Merkel said. "We agree that the question of Iran's regional influence is worrying, especially for Israel's security. That's why we will make every diplomatic effort to make use of our influence on the issue of Iran's ballistic program and its activities in Yemen and the presence of Iran's army in Syria."
"Overall, we don't agree on all issues, but we are friends and partners and we try to understand each other's interests," Merkel continued. "There is also a wide range of common views which we will continue to address."
"Thank you very much for your visit," she said to Netanyahu. "We are looking forward to our visit to Israel in October of this year."
Netanyahu then remarked that "we respect the government and the policies of Chancellor Merkel. We have some disagreements as you can see on occasion but they are not really in goal, they are more on the question of the method."
Before departing Israel earlier this week, Netanyahu told reporters that he would "meet three leaders," referring to Merkel, French President Emmanuel Macron and British Prime Minister Theresa May, "and raise two issues – Iran and Iran."
"We must continue increasing pressure on Iran to oppose its nuclear program," he explained. "The second issue is halting Iranian aggression in the region, mainly its attempts to attack us from Syria. I hope to formulate agreed-upon policy."
For her part, Merkel satisfied a central demand by Netanyahu by calling for the International Atomic Energy Agency to launch an investigation into a trove of documents pertaining to the shelved Iranian military nuclear program, which Israeli spies recently seized in a top secret operation.
She also declared a renewal of bilateral government meetings between Germany and Israel, which halted two years ago.
One of the central aims of Netanyahu's trip was to present European leaders with the secret documents from seized from the Iranian archive, which prove that the Iranian regime actively sought to manufacture nuclear weapons despite their denials. The London-based daily The Times reported Tuesday that one of the central documents is a memorandum formally transferring responsibility for the production of enriched uranium at the military level, not civilian, to Iran's Defense Ministry.
Netanyahu is set to meet Macron on Wednesday to promote collaborative efforts to counter Iran, followed by a meeting with May later this week.
While European powers have not yet aligned with U.S. policy to abandon the nuclear deal and re-impose sanctions on Iran, it appears that European companies are already on board.
The French PSA Group, known for its Peugeot and Citroen brands, issued a statement saying that "the Group has begun to suspend its joint ventures' activities, in order to comply with U.S. law by August 6th, 2018."
This move is expected to severely impact the Iranian economy. PSA Group and its rival, the Renault corporation, have signed contracts worth millions of dollars with Iranian companies since the nuclear deal was struck in July 2015.
These contracts would have brought the manufacturing of thousands of vehicles to Iran and significantly boosted Iran's employment rate.
