NCRI – Maryam Rajavi’s October trip to Belgium was a watershed, providing her with an opportunity to inform Belgian lawmakers of the threats posed by the clerical regime and underscore that neither a foreign military intervention, nor appeasement was a viable policy for curtailing Tehran’s export of fundamentalism and efforts to obtain nuclear weapons.
A third option, namely democratic change by the Iranian people and their Resistance, was the only effective and practical solution, she said.
Through threats and blackmail, the Iranian regime tried unsuccessfully to prevent Rajavi’s visit to Belgium. During his weekly press briefing on October 23, the mullahs’ Foreign Ministry spokesman demanded that Belgium cancel the trip. He said that the Belgian ambassador will be summoned to receive an earful of Tehran’s dismay over the visit.
The protests did not end there. Subsequent to meetings between Mrs. Rajavi and the Belgian Senate President Anne Marie Lizin, and a number of Belgian lawmakers, the Iranian regime summoned the ambassador for the second time. Foreign Ministry officials in Tehran informed Belgium’s newly-appointed envoy that they may not accept his credentials and that Brussels would have to do without an ambassador in Iran. At the same time, Tehran summoned the Finnish ambassador, whose country currently holds the rotating presidency of the European Union, and lodged a formal protest.
Reacting to Tehran’s bullying and blackmail, Ms. Lizin told the Belgian daily Le Soir that the purpose of the visit was to remove the People’s Mojahedin from the EU terrorist list, where it had initially been "placed hastily."
Rejecting Tehran’s protests, a Belgian Foreign Ministry spokesman said that in a democracy, where there is separation of powers, parliamentarians were free to invite guests and the executive branch had no say in such matters.
The Foreign Minister’s office also commented that Mrs. Rajavi was in Belgium as President-elect of the National Council of Resistance of Iran, which was not on the EU terror list and that there was nothing illegal about the visit.
Tehran’s vehement reaction to Rajavi’s visit demonstrates the regime’s fragile state and shows that Iran’s clerical rulers consider the Iranian Resistance as an existential threat. This explains why the mullahs cannot even tolerate Mrs. Rajavi meeting European officials or lawmakers thousands of kilometers away from Tehran.
