Former Belgian Prime Minister Mr. Guy Verhofstad was among the distinguished guests who participate in an international conference hosted by the National Council of Resistance of Iran in Auvers-sur-Oise on June 22.
Expressing gratitude to NCRI President-elect Mrs. Maryam Rajavi for the invitation, Mr. Verhofstad said: “I think it’s a very good moment to organize this conference at this moment when we have published an open letter on May 23, signed by no less than 109 former prime ministers, heads of state, political leaders. And let’s make that as the first conclusion of today is the very first time that so many politicians are united to call for a new approach, a radical new approach towards Iran. And with this letter that we send to the world leaders of today, we ask them, in fact, to change strategy and to take decisive steps against the current regime in Tehran.”
“300 civilians have been executed since the beginning of this year alone,” added the former Belgian Prime Minister, who is a signatory to a letter endorsed by 117 formed leaders in support of the Iranian people’s uprising and Resistance. “Last month, 142 innocent people were executed in Iran. That’s four murders a day by the regime. In 2022, nearly 600 people were executed in Iran. The clerics have the dubious honor of claiming that they have the highest number of executions in the world after China. That is the reality of today in Iran. And that comes in top of the many tens of thousands of deaths [executions] for which the regime should be held accountable since the 1980s. Not to forget the genocide that took place in the summer of 1988, where up to 30,000 innocent men and women have died a gruesome death.”
.@guyverhofstadt: We thought that we would get results by continuing to talk to these so-called moderates of the regime. We have to say today that this strategy & approach was wrong. In fact, there are no moderates in the regime of Iran. #FreeIran2023https://t.co/N2wllpOzzf
— NCRI-FAC (@iran_policy) June 22, 2023
Rejecting negotiations with the murderous regime in Tehran, former Belgian PM added: “I think personally that is pretty pointless because the mullah’s regime excels in ignoring any commitment. They are further expanding their stockpiles of enriched uranium, while at the same time deepening their alliance with other dictatorships, with Russia, shipping hundreds of drones and equipment for the construction of the drone factory over there. So, in these circumstances, no concession for a nuclear deal is in fact acceptable and certainly not what is happening today, victimizing the Iranian people living in Ashraf.”
On the way forward, Mr. Verhofstad stated: “We need to significantly expand the list of individuals and organizations that are subject to sanctions in Iran today. There are only 216 individuals and 36 organizations under sanctions from the European Union; 260. My goal is to expand the list, to expand the list to all the architects of violence with their perpetrators and with their accomplices. So that concerns thousands of people, officials, civil servants, police officers, judges, prison guards and so on. That needs to be tackled if we want to change something in Iran.”
“I think it’s absolutely necessary that the Iranian Revolutionary Guard and their paramilitary units who are responsible for the terror should be urgently blacklisted by the EU and all the 27 member states as a terrorist organization,” the former Belgian PM added. “The Iranian people and all democratic organizations in Iran and in exile have the knowledge, have the skills, have the courage, have the determination to turn their country into a modern democracy. And therefore, all initiatives such as Mrs. Rajavi’s Ten-Point Plan which include free elections, freedom of expression, abolition of death penalty, separation of church and state, gender equality, deserve our full support.”
“The best way to show our support to the Iranian people is to prepare the future, a future after the post-Mullah period, after 40 years of economic devastation and growing poverty. I think that these people deserve to live in a free country, but also to have the possibility to make a prosperous country, as it has always been the case. So, I truly hope that this open letter from May 23 that has been addressed to the world readers may be the start of a fundamental change in strategy and approach of the international community and that it can be the basis for a regained freedom of the Iranian people,” Mr. Verhofstad concluded.