According to Bavarian newspaper Suddeutsche Zeitung and local NDR and WDR media, the Federal Aviation Bureau will suspend Mahan Air’s license.

Mahan Air, the second biggest Iranian airline after Iran Air, has 4 flights every week to Dusseldorf and Munich. The Tehran-based Mahan Air had been blacklisted by the US in late 2011 for providing material and technical support for the Jerusalem Force, a special unit in the Iranian Revolutionary Guard. Washington considers the Revolutionary Guard a terrorist organization.

The US Department of Treasury has been threatening all countries who give landing permits to the two Iranian airlines with sanctions since May.

The Washington government has been pressuring German groups through their Berlin Ambassador Richard Grenell. The US wants German companies to withdraw from Iran. Groups like Deutsche Bahn, Deutsche Telekom, Daimler and Siemens have already suspended their operations in Iran.

In early January, the European Union had decided on sanctions against Iranian intelligence agencies and the two men responsible for a series of murders and conspiracies against Iranian opposition members in the Netherlands, Denmark and France.

In October, Denmark accused Iranian secret service of preparing for an attack against an Ahwaz Liberation Movement representative in Denmark. France had also accused Iranian services of attempting attacks against an annual congress of Iranian People’s Mujaheeds in Paris in 2018.

Iran rejects the accusations and argues that such allegations are geared towards disrupting the country’s relationship with the EU.