“We must remind Iran that any relationship with that country is contingent on guarantees that terrorism will cease,” said Mark Williams, a former Member of Parliament from the United Kingdom, in an interview with Simay-e Azadi, an opposition satellite TV channel on Thursday. This interview was simultaneous with the second session of the trial of Iran’s incarcerated diplomat-terrorist, Assadollah Assadi, and his three accomplices, in Belgium. The Iranian regime had tasked Assadi and three other operatives with bombing the 2018 annual “Free Iran” gathering held by the National Council of Resistance of Iran (NCRI).
Mr. Williams and hundreds of other renowned western politicians attended this rally and voiced their support of the Iranian Resistance.
Below is the full text of Mr. Williams’s interview with Simay-e Azadi:
It’s good to have the opportunity to talk with you tonight about the amazing trial that’s taking place in Antwerp, and I firstly want to pay a great debt of thanks to the governments of France and Germany and Belgium for foiling a heinous plot against people campaigning for democracy.
I was one of those people at the rally in June 2018, the gathering of the Iranian community throughout the world, many of us parliamentarians past and present and up to 100000 Iranian people were there listening to the case for democracy, freedom and a secular Iran made to be made by Maryam Rajavi. As usual, it was an inspiring speech. We left that weekend in good heart, convinced that change and reform and democracy was on its way to Iran. News soon seeped out of a terrorist plot, a terror terrorist plot perpetrated by a diplomat for the first time since the revolution 40 years ago that a diplomat has soiled his hands with a heinous terrorist plot which would have maimed, which would have killed, which would have murdered many people down in France campaigning for a free Iran.
And so today we have seen again the court case in Antwerp when four individuals amongst them, Assadollah Assadi, tried to defend the indefensible terrorist acts perpetrated on the streets of Europe against freedom campaigners for free Iran. It really is amazing to think that diplomatic immunity could have been used to smuggle a bomb from Tehran to Vienna with the intention of planting it amongst the Iranian people and parliamentarians throughout the world. But that was the plot. Perhaps it shouldn’t have been a surprise to us given the Iranian government’s appalling record on these matters. We’re well used in our movement to talk about Iranian incursions in Syria into Lebanon and Iraq, terrorist activity throughout the world. But now we are reminded about terrorist activity brought to the streets of Europe by the very same people.
And these were not four individuals acting alone. These were four individuals with a direct route back to the government in Tehran. I did an interview on radio a few days ago and was asked why would they attempt to bomb a gathering such as ours in Paris in June 2018? And I reminded the interviewer of the demonstrations on the streets of the cities of Iran, on food, on the economy, on human rights, on campaigns against the repressive regime in Tehran. That’s why the people were demonstrating, and that’s why the supreme leader described the PMOI as having a stranglehold on the people and being in control of the streets and in the same breath promised retribution against the PMOI, NCRI, and our Democratic campaign. And surprise, surprise, then we have the seeds of this bomb plot. It is truly appalling state of affairs, and we will hear in a month’s time the results of the prosecution from Antwerp.
But in the meantime, there are things that the governments of the West here in Britain and throughout Europe and the world need to undertake. We must remind Iran that any relationship with that country is contingent on guarantees that terrorism will cease, and the terrorists will move away and cease their activities. It will mean where we suspect terrorist activities, the closure of embassies and the expulsion of ambassadors and diplomats. And it will also mean the closure of religious and cultural front organizations throughout the world, which promise the culture and religion and yet are havens of terrorism and violence.
Those two must be expelled and it will mean, again, ceasing to appease the government in Tehran, terrorists in Iran spreading their terrorism throughout the world. Again, I think it’s worth thanking the governments of France, Germany and Belgium for bringing these terrorists to account, and we look forward in a month’s time to seeing justice done, justice to protect all of us, whether we are Iranians throughout the world, whether we campaign alongside our Iranian friends in the resistance. Thank you very much.
