De Standaard, October 24 – Last night nobody knew yet whether Maryam Rajavi’s visit to the Belgian Senate would take place. Senator Vankrunkelsven predicted that the Iranian lobby in Brussels would oppose to it. According to the Senate’s spokesperson, the law permitting senators to officially invite personalities could apply in this case.
In any case, the Liberal Democratic Party invited Mrs. Rajavi for a meeting at the Senate.
The ambassasor of Belgium in Iran was summoned in Tehran on Sunday to listen to the Tehran’s criticisms about the visit in Brussels by Maryam Rajavi, President of the National Council of Resistance of Iran, the exiled opposition.
The Iranian Foreign Ministry spoke about Maryam Rajavi’s visit with the Belgian ambassador and said that she was the head of the People’s Mojahedin Organization of Iran which was placed on the terrorism list in 2000.
The spokesman of the Belgian Foreign Ministry said: “Mrs. Rajavi is in Brussels as President of the National Council of Resistance of Iran and this council does not appear on the list.” Mrs. Rajavi, who lives in Paris, was in Brussels and at the European Parliament last July at the invitation of the Christian-Democratic Party. Mrs. Rajavi was invited by five members of the Senate – Patrik Vankrunkelsven from the Liberal Party, Staf Nimmegeers from the Socialist Party, Lionel Vandenberghe from the Spirit Party, Sabine de Bethune from the Christian-Democratic Party, and Pierre Galland from the Socialist Party.
According to Mr. Vankrunkelsven, this meeting is about the resolution adopted in December 2005 which required the Belgian Parliament to re-examine the position of the European Union in order to remove the name of the People’s Mojahedin of Iran from the list of terrorist organizations.
