Reuters – The West has failed in a policy of “appeasement” with Iran over its nuclear programme and must hit Tehran with tough economic and diplomatic sanctions, the leader of an exiled opposition group said on Tuesday.
Maryam Rajavi, head of the France-based National Council of Resistance of Iran (NCRI), said Europe’s acknowledgement this month of the collapse of efforts to bring Tehran to the negotiating table should trigger new harder tactics.
“The policy of appeasement has reached an impasse,” she said in an interview after a meeting with Belgian parliamentarians.
“There must now be a decision for a policy of toughness — to impose embargoes on arms, oil, technology and diplomatic contacts,” she told Reuters.
France, Britain and Germany are drafting a United Nations Security Council sanctions resolution that would likely target only imports that could be used for nuclear work.
The move is in response to Iran’s refusal to suspend uranium enrichment which Tehran says is for generating electricity, but the West suspects is part of a veiled nuclear arms programme.
The NCRI is the political wing of the armed People’s Mujahideen, banned by the EU as a terrorist organisation.
It has some devoted followers in Europe and the United States and was first to expose Iran’s covert nuclear programme Iran in 2002.
Rajavi’s visit to the Belgian Senate sparked anger from the Iranian authorities, who summoned Belgium’s ambassador to Tehran to protest, lawmakers said.
Rajavi is insisting the West must support groups such as the NCRI that seek to foster an uprising against Iran’s clerical leadership.
“(The government) wants to make people afraid. But in reality it is like a hot-air balloon — one prick and it explodes,” she said.
Rajavi, wife of the Iraq-based Mujahideen’s historic leader, Massoud Rajavi, said she was making her first trip outside France since a French court in June eased travel and other restrictions on her and 17 other members of the NCRI.
She said she intended to campaign more widely for European governments to drop the Mujahideen from its terror list, a move the EU can only take if all 25 states are agreed.