Iran Focus

London, 19 June – US President Barack Obama has come under pressure from senior members of his Democratic party to protect some 2,500 Iranian dissidents affiliated with Iran’s main opposition group, the People’s Mojahedin Organisation of Iran (PMOI/MEK), in Camp Liberty, Iraq, from attacks by militias loyal to Tehran.

“[We] demand that the people in Camp Liberty live in safety and security. No longer the targets of terrorist acts. No longer the victims of violence. No longer left unprotected,” said Senator Robert Menendez (D., N.J), a former chairman of the Senate Foreign Relations Committee.

Menendez was addressing the annual Iran Freedom rally held by the Iranian opposition on June 13 in Paris. His videotaped remarks were carried by the Washington Times on Thursday.

Iranians attending an annual grand gathering in Paris over the weekend in support of democracy in Iran commemorated also the 50th anniversary of the establishment of Iran’s main opposition group, the Mojahedin-e-Khalq (MEK/PMOI).

The MEK is the main organisation in the opposition coalition National Council of Resistance of Iran (NCRI), led by opposition leader Maryam Rajavi.

At the major rally in Paris there was a large memorial in memory of the founders of the MEK and the 120,000 MEK members who had been executed by Iran’s regime.

Paris, June 16 – Arab nations must act to curb Iranian influence if there is ever to be peace and stability in the Middle East, a major conference has been told.

Tehran is spreading terror and sowing sectarian discord in Iraq, Syria and Yemen, top Iranian opposition leader Maryam Rajavi warned delegates at a conference on Sunday on religious extremism and Iran’s ‘destructive role’.

The major conference, held north of Paris at the headquarters of the National Council of Resistance of Iran (NCRI), drew participants such as former Algerian Prime Minister Sid Ahmed Ghozali, former Egyptian Foreign Minister Mohammed Elorabi, and former Palestinian Women’s Affairs Minister Rabiha Diab.

The West’s appeasement of Iran during the nuclear talks is ‘giving legitimacy’ to an illegitimate regime, Iranian Resistance leader Maryam Rajavi has declared.

She said circumstances were ‘ripe for regime change’ but the US and other Western governments were standing in the way by pursuing a deal to halt Iran’s efforts to acquire a nuclear bomb.

She told the Washington Times newspaper: “Through their policy of appeasement and giving concessions to the regime, Western governments have served as an obstacle to the regime’s overthrow.

“In the absence of Western assistance, this regime would have fallen by now.”

Without explicit support for the National Council of Resistance of Iran (NCRI), the United Kingdom would never be able to truly confront the brand of Islamic fundamentalism that ISIS represents, David Jones, a Conservative Member of Parliament in the UK has argued.

“There should be no doubt in the West that Tehran is using its proxies to compete with ISIS for dominance in Iraq, Syria and the wider Middle East. Iran has absolutely no interest in defeating and degrading the Islamic fundamentalism that is threatening the region,” Mr. Jones wrote on Tuesday in the website The Diplomat.