“We will try to improve and accelerate the (Iranian) patients’ access to the (German) embassy and visa issuance,” German envoy Michael Ungern-Sternberg said in Tehran on Tuesday.
He made the comments in a meeting with officials from the Rare Diseases Foundation of Iran.
The ambassador, however, explained that granting visa comes within the purview of Berlin and the embassy cannot act independently, but promised to make efforts in that regard.
For his part, Ali Davoudian, managing director of the Iranian foundation, proposed the idea of establishing a technical task force to facilitate visa restriction for the Iranian patients.
Over the past years, Iran has been under tough Western sanctions which target oil exports, shipping, airlines, petrochemical and automotive industries, banking system and currency, and many other areas which have a direct bearing on the lives of people.
The West has also devised a regime of sanctions that severely restricts Iran's ability to access food and medicines.
In a recent development, the British embassy in Turkey refused two Iranian hemophiliacs visas while the patients were scheduled to undergo advanced medical treatment at the invitation of University College London (UCL).