Austria’s foreign minister has suggested her country could host peace talks between the US and Iran.
“As in the past Austria is always available as a place for negotiations”, Beate Meinl-Reisinger wrote on X yesterday.
Following the US-Israeli attacks on Iran, Meinl-Reisinger called for “quick de-escalation and a return to democracy”.
“If there is a long war in the Middle East a lot is on the line for the whole region.
“The events in Iran must not be allowed to cause a conflagration that could threaten the Middle East and Europe with unpredictable consequences, including economic ones,” Meinl-Reisinger wrote.
The minister also demanded “respect of the territorial integrity of all states in the region” – perhaps worrying about a break-up of Iran in a post-regime era.
“The regime in Tehran has been suppressing its own population for years and systematically violating human rights.
“I have consistently made this criticism clear and have advocated for decisive sanctions. At the same time, I am deeply concerned about a further erosion of the international order and the risk of a military escalation spiral,” Meinl-Reisinger wrote.
She added that Austria “strongly condemned the unprovoked attacks” against Middle East countries from Bahrain to the United Arab Emirates and called on Iran to “immediately stop these violations of sovereignty”.
Austria 🇦🇹 strongly condemns the unprovoked attacks against Bahrain 🇧🇭 , Iraq 🇮🇶 , Jordan 🇯🇴 , Kuwait 🇰🇼 , Oman 🇴🇲 , Qatar 🇶🇦 , Saudi Arabia 🇸🇦 , and the UAE 🇦🇪 . We call on Iran to immediately stop these violations of the sovereignty and territorial integrity of the countries in…
— Beate Meinl-Reisinger (@BMeinl) March 1, 2026
Meinl-Reisinger – or her PR team – took great care to adorn her post with the flag emojis for all countries mentioned, only omitting the Iranian flag.
That earned her ridicule from some commentators. Sylvia Steinitz, a PR staffer for Austria’s Social Democrats (SPÖ), suggested Meinl-Reisinger should have added some angry face emojis “to appear really serious”.
Meinl-Reisinger has been accused in the past of trying to cosy-up to unsavoury international actors in her quest to obtain a seat for Austria on the UN Security Council.
On February 28, Vienna-based Middle East think-tank MENA Watch accused her of opportunism and “applied double standards”. That was because, it said, she had abandoned Austria’s historic support for Israel in favour of trying to please Islamic nations in order to obtain support for the Austrian security council candidacy.
Opposition politicians were also critical of Meinl-Reisinger.
FPÖ leader Herbert Kickl said today: “Now is not the time to trumpet meaningless phrases and condemnatory platitudes that no one is interested in anyway and that are not worth the paper they are written on.”
Kickl demanded an immediate meeting of Austria’s National Security Council to address “massive risks” for the country in terms of energy supply and economic stability.
