Iran Blames NATO For Escalation In Ukraine Crisis
Iran has blamed NATO for the recent escalation in the Ukraine crisis, calling for restraint from both sides, as Russia has moved to dismember the country.
Iran has blamed NATO for the recent escalation in the Ukraine crisis, calling for restraint from both sides, as Russia has moved to dismember the country.
Foreign Ministry spokesman Saeed Khatibzadeh said on Tuesday that provocative measures and interventions by the United States led to drastic escalation of tensions.
"Unfortunately, NATO's provocative measures and interventions, led by the US, have further complicated the situation in the region”, he said.
The Islamic Republic is monitoring the developments with sensitivity and urges all sides of the conflict to exercise restraint and avoid any actions that could aggravate the tensions, Khatibzadeh said.
President Vladimir Putin announced late Monday that Russia recognized the independence of two breakaway regions of Donetsk and Lugansk in eastern Ukraine held by separatists, practically paving the way for the deployment of Russian troops.
Hours after Putin’s move, Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelenskyy said his countrymen “are not afraid” announcing that it would deploy troops there to “maintain peace”.
The decision by Moscow has triggered international condemnation and a promise of targeted sanctions and a promise of targeted by the United States and the European Union.
An urgent meeting of the United Nations Security Council (UNSC) was held on the deepening crisis as the United States said the announcement by Putin was an “unprovoked violation of Ukraine’s sovereignty and territorial integrity”.
The letter, which was signed by Western-based secular and liberal groups opposed to the Islamic Republic, addressed the leaders of France, Germany, and the United Kingdom, calling on them to end “the failed and catastrophic policy of negotiating with and appeasing the Islamic Republic”.
They told Emmanuel Macron, Boris Johnson, and Olaf Scholz that the regime with which they are engaged in talks “is the same fundamentalist regime that since its inception 43 years ago, has had terror, hostage-taking, and sabotage, as an integral part of its ideology and nature, and its most important tools for blackmailing the free world”.
Diplomats have said that nuclear talks, which began last April to revive the 2015 nuclear agreement (JCPOA), have made significant progress and a final deal is imminent soon. In case agreement is reached, Iran is set to receive billions of dollars of blocked funds and massive sanctions relief.
The signatories highlighted that the “Islamist revolutionary regime has carried out hundreds of terrorist attacks around world”, emphasizing that it has engaged in killings, bombings, and hostage taking, as well as issuing fatwas (decrees) for murder of innocent people.
This is “the same inhumane, misogynist, and anti-LGBTQ oppressive regime that, despite decades of attempts at dialogue and resolutions by the international community, still enforces medieval Sharia law,” which includes stoning, amputation, and flogging, the letter read.
The opposition groups stressed that the clerical government “carries out large-scale executions and imprisonments, often with the aim of suppressing and silencing political opponents”.
The Islamic Republic soon after its establishment cracked down on opposition and independent groups and has continued to ban civil society initiatives. Practically all opposition has been sent into exile or imprisoned.
They criticized the policy of the West, especially Europe, towards “this anti-Semitic regime,” saying “appeasement and the payment of ransoms in order to normalize and attempt to change the behavior of this inherently abnormal regime” have only emboldened it “in its terrorist activities, criminality, and nuclear and military ambitions”.
The signatories highlighted Iran’s track record of “insolence on the international stage and criminal suppression of the people”, stating that “Nearly two decades of counterproductive negotiations and flawed deals such as the JCPOA have only given the Islamic Republic a chance to buy time. By deceiving the international community, it has brought its nuclear and ballistic missile programs to an irreversible stage”.
Then opposition groups called for action, urging the three European powers “to put aside, once and for all, the failed and catastrophic policy of negotiating”, saying that now when the Islamic Republic is at the lowest level of popular legitimacy in its history it “is the time to choose another policy: Maximum support for the Iranian people to end more than four decades of medieval rule and replace it with a secular democratic system that serves Iran's national interests through peaceful coexistence and cooperation with neighbors and all countries in the world”.
“This is the only way to prevent the world's largest terrorist state from achieving the atomic bomb -- a catastrophe that will plunge the entire region into a nuclear arms race”, they wrote.
They asked the European leaders that instead of the Vienna talks they should “enter into a serious and effective dialogue with the democratic and national opposition of Iran, which wants a free and secular Iran”.
“Sooner or later, the Islamic Republic will be overthrown by the brave and courageous people of Iran, and the day after liberation, the Iranian people will remember who stood by them in difficult times and who aided their oppressors”, they concluded.