Maryam Rajavi Speaks on Need to Close Iran Embassies

Following the withdrawal of the Iranian regime’s appeal of the terrorist conviction of its diplomat Assadollah Assadi for the bomb plot at the 2018 Free Iran rally in France and thus its acceptance of the 20-year prison sentence, the leader of the Iranian Resistance has spoken out.

Maryam Rajavi, the President-elect of the National Council of Resistance of Iran (NCRI), said that as the sentence is now final, it is more important than ever for the European Union to blacklist Iran’s Intelligence Ministry and Revolutionary Guards, which would include the prosecution and expulsion of agents and mercenaries, along with the revocation of their citizenship and/or refugee status.

She said that the regime’s embassies and cultural/religious centres must be closed because they are centres for spying and terrorism, which threaten the security of European countries and the rest of the world.

Rajavi said: “The terrorist conspiracy at the Villepinte, France and the Antwerp court’s verdict showed that we are facing a case of state-organized terrorism emboldened by four decades of appeasement vis-a-vis the clerical regime.”

She further warned that the European Union should not reward the regime’s hostage-taking, extortion, and blackmail by reigniting the flawed 2015 nuclear deal and called on the leaders to hold the mullahs to account.

Rajavi said: “As I emphasized during my seven-hour testimony, the Supreme National Security Council (SNSC), presided over by [President] Hassan Rouhani, with [Foreign Minister] Javad Zarif’s presence, made the decision to bomb the Iranian Resistance’s gathering at the Villepinte, and the regime’s Supreme Leader Ali Khamenei approved it. Khamenei, Rouhani, Javad Zarif, and the mullahs’ Intelligence Minister Mahmoud Alavi must face justice for decades of terrorism and crimes against humanity.”

Of course, this has near enough been admitted to by various members of the Iranian regime even in the last few months.

On April 28, Rouhani said that the SNSC’s role was to allow the heads of the three government branches to meet with military commanders to discuss defensive and offensive operations.

He said: “We discuss, and finally, the Supreme Leader must approve our decision.”

While Zarif said in a February 24 interview, which was leaked on April 25, that the security forces were more or less embedded in the Foreign Ministry, with most ambassadors being agents.

He said: “Our Ministry of Foreign Affairs has been facing security issues since it began operating. The Ministry’s agenda has been a political-security agenda since the beginning of the revolution.”

This indicates that the Revolutionary Guards and security services have overwhelming control in the diplomatic apparatus.

Originally published at https://towardfreeiranwithmaryamrajavi.blogspot.com.