The United States must make ‘transparency and openness’ a condition of all negotiations with Iran, former US governor Howard Dean has told a conference in Brussels on Wednesday.
He also condemned the recent spate of acid attacks against women perpetrated by the regime’s Basij paramilitary force and with the approval of Iran’s ruling mullahs.
He told delegates at the European Parliament event: “This is a regime not simply of repression. This is a regime of savages that has no place in the civilized world.
“And one thing that must come out of this meeting beside denouncing the mullahs regime, is some action.
We must not take any more short term action regarding Iran that is contrary to our long-term interests.”
And he said of the Iranian dissents in Camp Liberty in Iraq: “It does not make sense to sacrifice the lives of 2,500 unarmed people who the United States has promised to defend, in order to appease the mullahs and help them get rid of the very effective and punishing sanctions on the regime.
“Negotiation is always better than war, but I’m not in favor of any negotiation that do not, first of all, end up with the freedom of the 2,500 Iranian prisoners in Iraq.”
He added: “We all have to have transparency and openness. That’s what we are fighting for and we must insist on it as a condition of these negotiations.
“Our State Department must stop talking about human rights if they don’t intend to deliver them. That means the people at Camp Liberty must be set free tomorrow and if it means all of them come to the United States, then let them do so. How can we ask you to take these refugees if the United States government has taken none of them.
“And it is our job, both in the United States and in Europe to make sure that we do not we simply just talk about such a thing, but we actually create the reality. This could happen.”