By Mark Deen
Bloomberg – U.K. Foreign Secretary Jack Straw called on non-governmental groups and think tanks to multiply contacts with the Iranian population in an effort to avoid a standoff with the Tehran government over its nuclear program.
"We in Europe need to communicate better with the Iranian people,” Straw said today at the International Institute for Strategic Studies in London. "The Iranian people deserve better.”
By appealing directly to Iranians, Straw is seeking to put pressure on President Mahmoud Ahmadinejad to back down on plans to restart uranium enrichment. The United Nations Security Council is meeting to discuss Iran’s nuclear activities this week after the International Atomic Energy Agency said it couldn’t declare Iran’s atomic activities peaceful.
In a meeting with British parliamentarians today, the leader of the exiled National Council of Resistance of Iran, Maryam Rajavi, said the outside world’s search for an accommodation with Iran had failed.
"The policy of appeasement adopted over two decades toward the Iranian regime has emboldened the mullahs in their violent suppression of the Iranian people and has acted as the greatest impediment to democratic change,” Rajavi told a U.K. parliamentary delegation at her base in the village of Auvers-sur-Oise, north of Paris, according to an e-mailed statement from the exile group.
‘Brutal Regime’
Western policies have "simply helped to keep a repressive and brutal regime in power,” said Robin Corbett, a Labour member of the House of Lords and leader of the U.K. delegation. "We support Mrs. Rajavi’s view that neither military force nor appeasement is the answer to the threat posed by the Iranian regime. Instead, democratic change can be achieved through the Iranian people and their resistance.”
Iran, holder of the world’s second-largest reserves of oil and natural gas, says it has a right to enrich uranium, a process that can be used for nuclear power or bombs. The U.S., the U.K. and other countries say they suspect it is covering up a weapons program.
Britain and France, both permanent members of the Security Council, and Germany have led the 25-nation EU’s diplomacy on Iran. The other permanent Security Council members are the U.S., Russia and China.
In his speech, Straw maintained that Ahmadinejad’s government is responsible for the degradation of relations. "This is going to damage the interests of the Iranian people,” he said. "The decision is in the hands of the Iranian regime.”
