Iran Focus: Paris, Feb. 01 The main Iranian opposition coalition called on the international community on Tuesday to end its policy of appeasement and instead support democratic regime change in Iran. Iran Focus
Paris, Feb. 01 The main Iranian opposition coalition called on the international community on Tuesday to end its policy of appeasement and instead support democratic regime change in Iran.
Iranian opposition leader Maryam Rajavi told reporters at her headquarters in Auvers-sur-Oise that Tehran was bent on obtaining nuclear weapons.
By appointing [Mahmoud”> Ahmadinejad to the Presidency, the Iranian regime has made a strategic choice to secure the regime’s survival by obtaining nuclear weapons, devouring Iraq and showing enmity toward peace in the region, Rajavi, who is President-elect of the National Council of Resistance of Iran, said.
The regime has only two choices, all or nothing. There is no middle-of-the road option. If it retreats a single step, it would slide toward disintegration and demise, Rajavi, whose council was the first to reveal Tehrans secret nuclear activities in 2002, added.
She was joined by British Lord Russell-Johnston, French Senator Jean Pierre Michel, Belgian Senator Patrick van Krunkelsven, and member of the European Parliament Paulo Casaca in the panel, who unanimously called on the EU to remove the terror tag on the main Iranian opposition group, the Mojahedin-e Khalq.
The Iranian opposition leader said that she had written a letter to the five permanent members of the United Nations Security Council and the heads of state of the European Union in which she had welcomed the decisions taken on the need to refer the Iranian regime’s nuclear file to the UN Security Council.
The time has come for a new policy vis-à-vis the Iranian people and Resistance by supporting democratic change in Iran, Rajavi said.
Today, the crux of the matter is whether one can prevent the mullahs from obtaining the bomb and an outbreak of another war in the region. The world community is facing a critical choice: Continued compromise leading to unwanted war or firmness and removing the obstacles it has placed in the path of change in Iran.
Rajavi warned that by the end of 2007, Tehran will have produced plutonium that could be used in making a nuclear bomb.
She said, however, that its meddling in neighbouring Iraq posed a greater threat Today, the clerical regime is using its position in Iraq as a lever to coerce Western countries into retreat in nuclear talks. The mullahs’ advances in Iraq have emboldened the regime to demagogically call for the elimination of Israel. Democracy in Iraq and peace in the Middle East are dangerous for the mullahs. For this reason, they are trying their utmost to sabotage both processes.
Rajavi said that she neither agreed with appeasement or military invasion of Iran as a solution to dealing with Tehran. I believe there is a third option: democratic change by the Iranian people and the Resistance.
We, in the National Council of Resistance of Iran, a coalition of democratic forces, seek the establishment of a democratic republic based on the separation of church and state. We have repeatedly called for free elections under United Nations auspices. The mullahs have never accepted that. The Council has committed itself to hold free and fair elections for a legislative, national constituent assembly within six months of the regime’s overthrow and hand over the affairs to the people’s elected representatives. We want a peaceful Iran free of weapons of mass destruction. We want to rebuild our devastated country with the cooperation of different countries around the world, she said.
To deal with Tehran, Rajavi said that the world community had to immediately refer Tehrans nuclear file to the Security Council; impose oil, arms, technological, and diplomatic sanctions; investigate crimes against humanity committed by the religious theocracy against the Iranian people and its acts of terrorism outside Iran in an international tribunal; and remove the terror tag from the MeK and extend support to the NCRI.
