Iran’s judiciary chief on Monday warned of legal action against Tehran moderates advocating direct talks with the United States over its nuclear program, a day after Supreme Leader Ali Khamenei accused them of sowing discord in the country.
“Those who, out of negligence or with certain motives, issued a statement should admit their mistake and retract this disgraceful act,” Judiciary Chief Gholamhosein Mohseni Ejei said Monday, reacting to a call by Iran's Reform Front for direct US talks and full IAEA monitoring.
"Tehran's prosecutor will act according to his legal duty in this matter," Ejei added, speaking in a meeting of the Supreme Council of the Judiciary.
Ejei's warning comes after Iran’s Reform Front, on August 17, called for major political and nuclear policy shifts, including a voluntary suspension of uranium enrichment.
The coalition of 27 reformist organizations, in a statement, said “Iran’s social fabric was deeply wounded, with public life overshadowed by despair and anxiety.”
The statement urged the government to declare readiness for suspending enrichment and to accept full International Atomic Energy Agency (IAEA) monitoring in exchange for the lifting of sanctions.
Such a step, it said, could open the way for “comprehensive, direct negotiations with the United States and normalization of relations.”
Iran's Supreme Leader Ali Khamenei, however, rejected direct talks with the United States on Sunday, insisting that Washington’s hostility cannot be resolved through talks.
“Those who say, ‘Don’t chant slogans against America, they’ll get upset and become hostile toward you,’ are superficial. Those who argue, ‘Why don’t you negotiate directly with the United States and solve your problems?’ are, in my view, also superficial. That’s not the reality of the matter; this issue cannot be resolved," Khamenei said.
Iran's Supreme Leader said the enemies of the Islamic Republic seek to create division inside the country and to sow discord from within in order to bring about a regime change.
"They have agents inside: agents of Zionism and of America, present here and there in the country. Through them — or through those who are heedless of what they say and write — they try to create divisions among the people and generate discordant voices in the nation," he said in an apparent reference to the moderate critics of his policies.
