Iran Focus
Tehran, 8 Jul – “Pursuing the Strategy of Destruction of Israel” is the Muslim world’s top priority, Iran’s Islamic Revolutionary Guards Corps (IRGC) said in a statement on Wednesday.
The statement came as Iranian nuclear negotiators are in marathon talks with the world powers in Vienna in the hopes of signing an international agreement.
The IRGC statement, which was carried by Iranian state news agencies, called for a large turnout in Iran and other Muslim countries at state rallies on Friday which Tehran recognises as International Quds (Jerusalem) Day.
The IRGC statement also said there is “fragile security” in Israel, stressing that the government in Tel Aviv “has no control over its security anymore”.
Ruhollah Khomeini established International Quds Day in 1979 to be held on the last Friday of the holy month of Ramadan.
Negotiations on a nuclear agreement between Iran and six major powers have been extended through Friday to provide more time for talks on a final agreement.
The deal under discussion between Iran and the P5+1 – Britain, China, France, Germany, Russia and the United States – is aimed at curbing Tehran’s most sensitive nuclear work for a decade or more, in exchange for relief from sanctions that have slashed Iran’s oil exports and crippled its economy.
The US and its allies fear Tehran is using its civilian nuclear programme as a cover to develop a nuclear weapons capability. Iran says its program is peaceful.
Some members of the US Congress have expressed fears that a nuclear agreement could give Tehran a $150 billion financial windfall which could be used to finance terrorism in the Middle East.
Iran’s main opposition group, the National Council of Resistance of Iran (NCRI), last month published a 28-page report stating that Iran has been trying to keep its nuclear infrastructure intact and retain the capability to produce a nuclear weapon. It said Iranian Supreme Leader Ali Khamenei had put red lines for international inspectors having access to Iranian military sites and nuclear scientists and any halt to nuclear Research and Development (R&D).
The NCRI, the group which first blew the whistle on Iran’s secret uranium enrichment and heavy-water sites in 2002, last week also warned that without “complete unrestricted access” to international inspectors to monitor Iranian military facilities, Iran could not be trusted to abide by the terms of the international agreement.
It published a partial list of Iranian nuclear sites that it had exposed and which Tehran had previously kept secret.
