Iranians, MEK Supporters in Vienna Call for Firm Policy Vis-à-Vis Tehran

Written by
Mansoureh Galestan

On Monday, September 12, Iranian expatriates, supporters of the People’s Mojahedin Organization of Iran (PMOI/MEK) held a rally in Vienna, near the International Atomic Energy Agency (IAEA) headquarters.

The demonstration was held while state members of the IAEA Board of Governors were discussing the Iranian regime’s nuclear dossier and when prospects of the 2015 Iran nuclear deal with world powers, formally known as the Joint Comprehensive Plan of Action (JCPOA) are increasingly looking grim. In an effort to extract more concessions from the Western signatories of the deal, Tehran has been violating all its commitments under the JCPOA.

The IAEA’s Monday meeting came three months after the Board of Governors adopted a resolution urging Iran’s ruling theocracy to provide reasonable answers to the nuclear watchdog’s investigations concerning the unresolved uranium traces at three sites in Iran.

Three months have elapsed but Tehran is still refusing to answer these questions and continues proliferating its nuclear program in light of the Western government’s appeasement policy.

Iranians and MEK supporters on Monday called out the failed appeasement policy that has fueled a decades-long crisis of impunity in Iran. They underlined that Iran’s clerical regime has been dragging its feet with the JCPOA-restoration negotiations while accelerating its efforts to acquire a nuclear bomb.

On May 10, Reuters quoted IAEA’s Chief, Rafael Grossi, as saying that the regime “was dragging its feet on information about uranium particles found at old undeclared sites in the country, raising the prospect of a clash on the issue in June.”

In addition, on September 10, European powers expressed their “serious doubts” about Iran’s intentions to resurrect the JCPOA.

“Iran’s position contradicts its legally binding obligations and jeopardizes prospects of restoring the JCPOA,” read the statement by the European powers, as reported by Reuters.

Members of the Iranian diaspora, who plan to continue their protests for the next few days, once again reiterated the fact that Tehran has no intention of abiding by the JCPOA terms. While referring to multiple revelations made by the Iranian Resistance, they reminded world powers that the Iranian regime had never honored its commitments and has been incessantly pursuing to development of nuclear weapons.

Background

The Iranian regime started its drive toward nuclear weapons in 1983. The most significant exposure made by MEK sources inside Iran that initiated worldwide scrutiny was made on August 14, 2002, when intelligence reports from the MEK sources inside Iran revealed the Natanz uranium enrichment site and the heavy water facility in Arak. Subsequent revelations unveiled the extent to which the regime’s clandestine nuclear weapons work had advanced, and this triggered inspections by the International Atomic Energy Agency and went on to develop the strictest sanctions regime for years to come.

On October 16, 2020, the Iranian Resistance issued a new report explaining that authorities in charge of nuclear weaponization had established an entirely new site in Sorkheh-Hesar. The report specified that construction on the facility, amid a ballistic missile manufacturing complex, began in 2012 and gradually became functional in 2017. As this timeline perfectly overlaps with the implementation of the JCPOA, it arguably corroborates the Iranian Resistance’s longstanding conclusion that the regime never intended to fully comply with the terms of that deal.

The Iranian Resistance remains committed to the historic task of preventing an aggressive, virulently sectarian, and repressive terrorist regime from developing weapons of mass destruction and using them to threaten its people, the Middle East region, and the world.

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