Radio IDFM: Helen Fathpour, you are a member of the Foreign Affairs Committee of the National Council of Resistance of Iran, so you are in a good position to talk about the situation in Iran. Do you have a first analysis of what happened during Kofi Annan’s meeting with the President of Iran?
HF: All newspapers reported it as a failure, and made their headlines on the subject.We have to remember that he went there for two reasons; one was nuclear crisis and the other the crisis in Lebanon., The Iranian regime had already announced its rejection of suspending uranium enrichment, even before his arrival in Tehran, therefore Tehran took advantage of Kofi Annan’s visit to justify its defiant attitude and to continue its program. The opinion of the Resistance and the Iranian people is that a firm attitude must be adopted quickly, as well as sanctions to ease the suppression in Iran and allow room for up-risings against this dictatorship. It is clear that this crisis can only be resolved through a democratic change in Iran, as has been advocated by the president elect of the resistance, Maryam Rajavi.
Radio IDFM: What is your stance concerning Iran’s acquiring the atomic bomb?
HF: The Resistance as well as the Iranian people is profoundly opposed to the atomic bomb, particularly in the hands of the mullahs. You must undoubtedly know that if the nuclear activities of this regime are now being perused, it is due to the resistance revelations, the first being in 2002. This regime wants war, it has shown its defiant attitude to the international community, we see it very well in Lebanon, Iraq, the rest of the Middle East, and with open attacks against the state of Israel. It is therefore a regime which will use the bomb as soon as it gets it. You must know that it will first use it against its Arab neighbours. It has been an ideal for the fundamentalist dictatorship to create a global Islamic empire. It is therefore a real threat and it is the resistance’s duty to denounce this menace. It is also against the welfare of the Iranian nation, and for this, many accept huge risks to supply secret information for the resistance in order to warn the international community.
Radio IDFM: You are making us frightened by telling us that this regime would use the bomb as soon as it gets It?
HF: Yes absolutely, we should not delude ourselves. This is where danger lies. This fundamentalist regime is extremely violent and agressive. The international community must be aware of that; it slightly opened its eyes during the events in Lebanon. And because we take this menace very seriously, we call for immediate sanctions. this regime only reacts to the language of firmness. And the negociations which have taken place for three years have come to nothing, but they encourage it on the contrary to continue its nuclear activities in Iran and to keep this defiant attitude by saying no to the Security Council, no to the international community.
Radio: Antoine Sfeir, who is a well known expert, states that the President of Iran, who expresses himself with unbearable statements, has no power in Iran. Can you explain us what the institutional powers of this president exactly are?
HF: It is true to say that the President of Iran has no “power”. Iran is a religious dictatorship; it is the Supreme Leader Ali Khamenei who has the whole country under his power. But this president came – he has not been elected because no opposition group was able to run for election – has been appointed to power in order to apply these extremely agressive policies. With the arrival of Ahmadinejad, the Iranian regime had declared war against the Iranian people and the international community.