Rajavi was addressing the conference of “French elected officials against religious extremism and in solidarity with Resistance”
The Committee of French Mayors in Defense of Ashraf Residents organized the conference and several French Mayors addressed it in Paris’ 2nd District Municipality. The committee represents some 14,000 French mayors and elected officials.
Ashraf residents are Iranian dissidents residing in Iraq, members of the leading Iranian opposition movement, the People’s Mojahedin Organization of Iran (PMOI/MEK).
According to Rajavi, the failure of Tehran and the P5+1 to reach an agreement after a year of negotiations demonstrates the weakness and vulnerability of the Iranian regime. That is, Rajavi says that despite unwarranted concessions by the West, the Iranian regime is unable to abandon its nuclear bomb-making project for fear of losing its grip on power. This vulnerability has deepened since the ouster of the regime’s protégé in Iraq, former Prime Minister Nouri-al-Maliki.
Rajavi went on to say that the basis for the failure of the new round of talks was the “West’s retreat from the UN Security Council resolutions during the past year.”She added, “The other aspect of this utterly feeble approach was the shameful silence with regard to the horrendous violation of human rights in Iran, as well as the criminal meddling of this regime in the region. This ignorance by governments has victimized the fate of the Iranian people and the nations in the region.”
The P5+1 and Iran agreed on Monday to extend the negotiations over the Iranian nuclear program until the end of June 2015.
“The full implementation of the Security Council resolutions, complete halt in uranium enrichment, and international snap inspections of all suspect centers and sites are the sole tools to block Iranian regime’s path to the nuclear bomb. This is impossible to secure without a firm policy that would put in place comprehensive sanctions. Concurrently, this policy needs to recognize the will of the Iranian people and resistance for a regime change,” Mrs. Rajavi underscored in her speech.
Addressing the crisis in the region and the search for the correct policy and approach vis-a vis ISIS, Rajavi called ISIS the by-product of mullahs’ support for Bashar Assad in Syria and Maliki in Iraq, as well as the sectarian policies and suppression and marginalization of a vast segment of Iraqi and Syrian populations implemented by these two leaders at the behest of the theocracy ruling Iran.
Rajavi warned about the dangerous policy that continues to overlook the crimes of the Iranian regime and its militias in Iraq and Syria. “While the eviction of the Iranian regime from the region, especially from Syria and Iraq, is the requisite for resolving the crisis,” she said, “some introduce the clerical regime as an ally in the fight against ISIS, either in an unwitting mistake or acting in line with their own interests. But involving the mullahs in the crisis in Iraq would neither stop the regime’s nuclear bomb nor would it put an end to ISIS. To the contrary, it would fuel the ISIS terror machine since the Iranian regime’s presence in the region intensifies sectarian conflicts.”
On the International Day for Elimination of Violence against Women, Mrs. Rajavi said: “In response to the popular disenchantment and growing protests, mullahs are resorting to barbaric suppression, particularly against defenseless women and girls, public executions, and hanging one person every eight hours. This proves this reality that regime’s president Hassan Rouhani has even failed in pretending to be a moderate.”
The mayors from the entire French political spectrum voiced their solidarity with the Iranian resistance to establish freedom, democracy, and secularism in Iran. Jean-François Legaret, mayor of 1st district of Paris; Jacques Boutault, mayor of 2nd district of Paris; Alain Néri, President of French Committee for a Democratic Iran (CFID) in Senate; Céleste Lett, member of Parliament and mayor of Sarreguemines; and Jean Lassalle, member of Parliament and Mayor of d’Oloron Saint Marie, were among the scores of elected officials who addressed the event.
In their statement the French elected officials stressed: “We are aware that in over 30 years of religious fundamentalism rule over Iran, it has persecuted its residents and has spread Islamic fundamentalism. The Committee calls on the French government to heighten its watchfulness regarding the activities of fundamentalist networks affiliated with the Iranian regime in France.”
Underscoring the solidarity of 14,000 mayors and elected officials with the resistance of Iran and the residents of Ashraf and Camp Liberty, the French mayors urged the French government to “use its influence on the Government of Iraq, in the European Union and the United Nations to guarantee the protection of over 2,700 Iranian dissidents, refugees in Camp Liberty, who are under persecution of forces under Tehran’s influence, to remove the medical blockade on the camp and to place the camp under UNHCR supervision as a refugee camp.”
French Mayors and elected officials cited the rising executions and acid-raids against women in Iran and underscored that human rights conditions have worsened in Iran under Rouhani. They stressed that the nuclear talks “should not overshadow the somber reality of Iran,” and urged the French government to reject any notion of offering concessions to the Iranian regime on the nuclear negotiations in light of Tehran’s systematic policy of concealing its nuclear activities and not being transparent.
