Diplomats and other officials in Brussels from the EU’s 27 states are co-ordinating possible emergency consular assistance for citizens in Iran and the wider region.
It is understood officials at an EU-level meeting on Sunday discussed an agreed approach of advising citizens to shelter in place for the moment, and there were no immediate plans to arrange evacuations.
However, Cyprus, an EU member state geographically close to Lebanon and Israel, has begun making preparations to facilitate airlifts evacuating European citizens from the region, in the event of any escalation of the conflict making such action necessary.
“With Khamenei gone, there is renewed hope for the people of Iran. We must ensure that the future is theirs to claim and shape,” European Commission president Ursula von der Leyen said on Sunday.
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“At the same time, this moment carries a real risk of instability that could push the region into a spiral of violence,” the head of the EU’s executive arm said.
Kaja Kallas, the EU’s top foreign affairs envoy, said the death of Ayatollah Ali Khamenei was a “defining moment in Iran’s history”, before adding that what would follow next was “uncertain”.
Kallas convened an emergency video call of EU foreign ministers on Sunday to discuss the “rapidly unfolding events” in Iran.
Kallas said that the bombing of Iran and the regime’s retaliatory missile strikes across the region “could not be allowed to escalate into a drawn-out war that destabilised the entire Middle East”.
“We call for maximum restraint, protection of civilians and full respect of international law,” she said.
The European Union was following the developments in Iran with “utmost concern”, the union’s foreign affairs envoy said.
In a statement following the call with EU foreign ministers, Kallas said European governments were committed to “safeguarding regional security and stability”.
Authorities in Cyprus are “monitoring developments” closely, its president Nikos Christodoulides said on Sunday.
Senior figures in the Cyprus government had recently expressed private concerns the island could become a secondary target in any escalating military conflict in the neighbouring Middle East region, because it hosts two sovereign British military airbases on its territory, under an agreement dating back to 1960.
UK prime minister Keir Starmer assured Christodoulides “clearly and unequivocally that Cyprus was not a target” in Iran’s retaliation, after two rockets were fired in its direction on Sunday.
French president Emmanuel Macron on Saturday said the outbreak of war “carries grave consequences for international peace and security”.
The escalating spiral of violence was “dangerous for all” and must stop, he said.
In his statement responding to the escalation in the Middle East, United Nations secretary -general António Guterres condemned the joint military operation by the US and Israel and the retaliatory strikes by Iran as a grave threat to international peace and security.
Minister for Foreign Affairs Helen McEntee said the US and Israel must follow international law but declined to describe the strikes on Iran as an illegal war.
When asked on RTÉ Radio 1’s This Week programme whether she also condemned the bombing of Iran, McEntee said the military action was an “extremely, extremely difficult situation” and she was concerned the escalation could “increase violence within the region and could escalate things beyond repair”.
“However, we are all very aware and very clear that the regime in Iran is an absolutely brutal regime that has quite literally, in the last number of weeks, slaughtered tens of thousands of their own citizens, and they have cut off all communication for their citizens, to their citizens, and that has not changed,” McEntee said.
She added that any military intervention had to be conducted in line with international law.
Asked whether the actions of the US and Israel amounted to an illegal war, McEntee said: “I can’t say that.
“As far as I’m concerned, whatever is happening, whatever actions are being taken ... they must comply with international law. But this is a very complex and a very difficult situation, and I’m extremely concerned.
“I’m extremely concerned that this, as we’ve seen already, just in the last 24 hours, has escalated further into the UAE. That, in itself, is what we’ve been trying to avoid. This is what everybody is trying to avoid.”
She said her discussion with other foreign leaders would be focused on how Europe can “de-escalate the situation”.
The Department of Foreign Affairs’ consular assistance to Irish citizens in Iran is being arranged by officials in Dublin and embassies in neighbouring countries in the Middle East.
Ireland’s ambassador to Iran, Laoise Moore, and the small number of other diplomatic staff posted to the embassy in Tehran are not in the country. The embassy staff were evacuated during Israel’s 12-day war with Iran last June. “There are no Irish diplomatic staff currently in Iran,” a department spokesman said.
