On April 3, the European Parliament adopted a moderately critical resolution on Iran causing a hysterical and unprecedented hostile reaction from the mullah’s regime.
Kazem Jalali had initially issued the statement on Tuesday April 1 addressing Tarja Cronberg, who had invited a parliamentary delegation from the Iranian regime to travel to Strasburg on April 15-16.
“With regards to the cancellation of the Iranian parliamentary delegation to Europe, Tarja Cronberg, the chairwoman of the European Parliament’s Delegation for Relations with Iran, had demanded the Iranian embassy in Belgium to have a phone conversation with Kazem Jalali, the chairman of Iran’s parliamentary relations with the European Parliament. The conversation took place yesterday (Thursday) afternoon,” the Fars report said.
Tarja Cronberg, “expressed her regret for the adoption of an anti-Iran resolution in the European Parliament and insisted that the visit of the Iranian parliamentary delegation should definitely take place so that the ill-wishers would not obtain their aim of disrupting relations between Iran and Europe,” Fars report added.
“At the end of the conversation, Tarja Cronberg demanded that the visit of Iranian parliamentary delegation takes place because the European Parliament will not have any more sessions after the date of the planned visit. After the request made by Tarja Cronberg, Kazem Jalali reiterated that: It is not possible for the Iranian parliamentary delegation to travel to Europe.”
A number of Iranian regime officials, including the the so-called ‘moderate’ Foreign Minister, the Speaker of the Majlis (the Iranian Parliament), the chair of the Iranian Parliament’s Security and Intelligence committee, Tehran’s Friday Prayer Leader, numerous members of the Majlis and the overwhelming majority of the media, had mounted relentless attacks on the EU, questioning why the European Parliament dared to include human rights violations and the anti-democratic behaviour of the regime of Iran in the on-going nuclear discussions.
Brigadier General Mohammad Reza Naghdi, the commander of the Basij force, called the EU MEPs worse than ‘four legged animals’. He said: “In their resolution they tell us that we have no right to execute people and that they want to have an office in Iran; it is none of your damned business to open up a bureau in Iran.” (The state-run Tabnak website – April 3, 2014)
Senior MEP Struan Stevenson, Chair of Friends of a Free Iran, said in a statement on April 8: “The hysterical reaction of the Iranian regime also underscores the need to keep up the pressure on human rights during all negotiations on the mullahs’ attempts to construct nuclear weapons. It would be a grave error to relax this pressure in the hope of appeasing the allegedly ‘moderate’ forces in Iran.
“The hysterical reaction of the Iranian Regime to the European Parliament’s resolution underlines the need for a continuing firm policy against the barbaric violation of human rights, nuclear projects and regional warmongering.”