Iran Focus
London, 3 July – Europe has enjoyed decades of stability because it derived the necessary lessons from its experiences. Europe has recognized that the way forward for the future is for each country to respect the borders of others, despite their differences. Europe has accepted coexistence based on the principle of respecting the differences between countries, and has committed to fortifying international borders, and stood against violating them.
Iran Focus
London, 3 July – On July 1st, IRNA, the government’s official news agency, cited Iranian legislator, Mohammad Javad Kolivand, as saying that 129 people were detained during the spontaneous protest rallies at the marketplace and outside the parliament building in Tehran. He also lauded the police’s success in establishing “security and peace in society”.
Abbas Jafari Dolatabadi, the city’s prosecutor-general, said that those arrested during the protests at Tehran’s Grand Bazaar on June 24th will not be released until their trial.
Iran Focus
London, 2 July – This weekend, three terror plot suspects were arrested in France and Germany over an apparent terror attack plot to bomb a rally organized by the National Council of Resistance of Iran in Paris on Saturday.
Two suspects in Belgium were intercepted by police on Saturday and were found with 500 grams of TATP, a home-made explosive produced of easily available chemicals.
The couple, believed to be from Antwerp, were also found with a detonation device in their car, Belgian prosecutors and the intelligence services said.
Iran Focus
London, 2 July – The main opposition to the Iranian clerical rulers, the National Council of Resistance of Iran (NCRI), held its annual gathering in Paris on Saturday 30th June. It was an overwhelmingly optimistic and positive event showing the progress that has been made in recent years. The majority of the speakers – elected representatives, former US administration officials, Members of European Parliament and dignitaries from all over the world – noted the positive move forward, especially in the past six months.
Iran Focus
London, 2 July – The Iranian Regime is planning to counter US economic sanctions by, in part, continuing to export oil, according to state-run news agency IRNA on Saturday.
Iranian President Hassan Rohani has met the head of parliament and the judiciary to discuss how best to evade the returning US sanctions, which will make it difficult for Iran to access the global financial system or trade with international companies.
Reportedly Iran will be seeking self-sufficiency in gasoline production. Fereydoun Hassanvand, head of the parliament’s energy committee, said that a committee would be established to study potential oil buyers and find ways to keep them on board despite US sanctions.
Iran Focus
London, 2 July – Iran’s presence in the affairs of other nations across the United States is a priority of the United States. The United States national security adviser, John Bolton, said at the weekend that Syrian President Bashar al Assad’s grip on power is not a US strategic issue, but Iran is.
In an interview with Face the Nation by CBS, the national security adviser was asked about Russia’s involvement in the blanket bombing in the southern area of Syria and how it violates the agreement between Putin and Trump. Bolton said however that there are “possibilities for doing a larger negotiation on helping to get Iranian forces out of Syria and back into Iran”, which he described as being a “significant step forward”. He added that the use of force to get Iran out of Syria would need to be agreed with Russia.
Iran Focus
London, 2 July – On Friday, June 29, 2018, several distinguished speakers took part in a panel discussion in which they talked about the IRGC and sanctions on Iran.
Moderating the discussion was Lincoln Bloomfield, Ambassador and distinguished Fellow and Chairman Emeritus at the Stimson Center and former Assistant Secretary of State for Military Affairs. He started the discussion by pointing out the hypocrisy of a regime that allows the IRGC to sell drugs by the truckload but executes people for possessing only a small amount.
Iran Focus
London, 29 Jun – In a panel discussion dealing with the IRGC and its meddling in the region, several distinguished speakers spoke about the threat and how it can be dealt with.
The panel discussion entitled “IRGC and Meddling in the Region” comes ahead of the Free Iran rally organised by the National Council of Resistance of Iran (NCRI) and the Mojahedin Organization (MEK) in Paris.
Iran Focus
London, 29 Jun – In a panel discussion on Friday, June 29, the last before the National Council of Resistance of Iran’s Free Iran rally in Paris, several more political figures spoke about the Iranian opposition’s and MEK’s role and the protests that have been sweeping across Iran since the end of last year.
Mitchell Reiss, Ambassador and former Director of U.S. State Department Policy, opened the panel discussion with great positivity, pointing out that momentum is starting to shift towards to Iranian Resistance and the Mojahedin organization (PMOI) or MEK. He thanked Mrs. Maryam Rajavi and the National Council of Resistance of Iran (NCRI) for keeping faith in the cause and for bringing the realities of life in Iran to our attention.
By Jubin Katiraie
Iranian Resistance group, the People’s Mojahedin Organization of Iran (PMOI/MEK), has long been painted by Iranian Mullahs as a fringe group with little support from the Iranian people, but the Iranian uprising proves that to be false.
In December 2017, protests broke out in Mashhad over a draft budget that slashed subsidies for the poor and put more funding into Iran’s suppressive forces and malign military campaigns. At any other time, the Mullahs’ government might have quelled this protest, but the MEK stepped in to spread the protests across 142 cities in all of Iran’s provinces.
