Iran Committed To Resist Against Economic War: Ahmad Khatami

Tehran, Oct 6, IRNA – Nation is committed to resist enemy economic pressures, Tehran Provisional Friday Prayers Leader Hojjatoleslam Ahmad Khatami said in his second sermon here Friday. 'Economic difficulties in Iran are partly because of foreign embargoes but the decision-makers can help decrease the pressures by fulfilling coordinated economic programs.' Khatami noted that the world powers who have sanctioned Iran are dealing with dire economic and social crises, but of course the situation in Iran is normal. The cleric pointed to the 8 years of Iraqi imposed war against Iran, adding that the Iranian nation will resist against the economic war and will never bend to its enemies. Khatami criticized the US action in removing the name of the Mojahedin-e Khalq Organization (MKO - also known as the MEK, NCR and PMOI) from the list of terrorist groups and asserted that this action by the US government proved the hidden ties between the chain of terrors done by the MKO members in coordination with the US and the occupying force of Zionist regime. 'While the US is campaigning its international war against Iran, negotiation with Washington is meaningless.' In case of the reasons behind Iran sanctions, it should be noted that despite Iran's compliance with the NPT, Washington and its western allies accuse the country of trying to develop nuclear weapons under the cover of a civilian nuclear program, while they have never presented any corroborative evidence to substantiate their allegations. Iran denies the charges and insists that its nuclear program is for peaceful purposes only. Despite the rules enshrined in the NPT entitling every member state, including Iran, to the right of uranium enrichment, Tehran is now under four rounds of UN Security Council sanctions for turning down West's calls to give up its right of uranium enrichment. Tehran has dismissed the west's demand as politically tainted and illogical, stressing that the sanctions and pressures merely consolidate the Iranians' national resolve to continue their legitimate path. Political observers believe that the United States has remained at loggerheads with Iran mainly over the independent and home-grown nature of Tehran's nuclear technology, which gives the Islamic Republic the potential to turn into a world power and a role model for the other third-world countries. It is also important to know that the US State Department removed the MKO from its list of foreign terrorist organizations on September 21. The decision made by Secretary of State Hillary Clinton enabled the group to have its assets under US jurisdiction unfrozen and to do business with the American entities, the State Department said in a statement. The Iranian Foreign Ministry in a statement condemned the US move and said it displayed Washington's double-standard policies. The statement accused Washington of applying double-standards in dealing with terrorism, reminding that the terrorist MKO grouplet is responsible for the deaths of thousands of Iranian civilians. The delisting of MKO was 'a violation of America's legal and international obligations' that could threaten US interests. The decision 'will bring US responsibility for past, present and future terrorist operations by this group,' the statement said. Before an overture by the EU, the MKO was on the European Union's list of terrorist organizations subject to an EU-wide assets freeze. Yet, the MKO puppet leader Maryam Rajavi, who has residency in France, regularly visited Brussels and despite the ban enjoyed full freedom in Europe. The MKO behind a slew of assassinations and bombings inside Iran, a number of EU parliamentarians said in a recent letter in which they slammed a British court decision to remove the MKO from the British terror list. The EU officials also added that the group has no public support within Iran because of their role in helping Saddam Hussein in the Iraqi imposed war on Iran (1980-1988). Many of the MKO members have abandoned the terrorist organization while most of those still remaining in the camp are said to be willing to quit but are under pressure and torture not to do so. A May 2005 Human Rights Watch report accused the MKO of running prison camps in Iraq and committing human rights violations. According to the 2012 Human Rights Watch report, the outlawed group puts defectors under torture and jail terms. The group was founded in the 1960s as a guerrilla organiztion figthing both against the ousted Shah's regime and against its western, and parriculalry US supporters. Ahead of the glorious Iranian revolution, the MKO had conducted attacks and assassinations against both Iranian and western targets. The leaders of the group have been fighting to shed its terrorist tag after a series of bloody anti-Western attacks in the 1970s, and nearly 33 years of violent struggle against the Islamic Republic of Iran. The group started assassination of the citizens and officials after the revolution in a bid to take control of the newly established Islamic Republic. It killed several of Iran's new leaders in the early years after the revolution, including the then president, Mohammad Ali Rajayee, Prime Minister, Mohammad Javad Bahonar and the Judiciary Chief, Mohammad Hossein Beheshti who were killed in bomb attacks by MKO members in 1981. The group fled to Iraq in 1986, where it was protected by Saddam Hussein and where it helped the Iraqi dictator suppress the Shi'a and Kurd uprisings in the country. The terrorist group joined Saddam's army during the Iraqi imposed war on Iran (1980-1988) and helped Saddam and killed thousands of Iranian civilians and soldiers during the US-backed Iraqi imposed war on Iran. Since the 2003 US invasion of Iraq, the group, which now adheres to a pro-free-market philosophy, has been strongly backed by neo-conservatives in the United States, who argued for the MKO to be taken off the US terror list. In recent years, the MKO ringleaders have been lobbying governments around the world in the hope of acknowledgement as a legitimate opposition group. The MKO spent huge sums of money over years lobbying for the removal from the US terror list, holding rallies in European capitals and elsewhere that featured luminaries like the former Homeland Security Secretary Tom Ridge from the administration of George W. Bush. Also the former House Speaker and presidential candidate Newt Gingrich was among those recently welcomed by the MKO to Paris. The UK initiative, however, prompted the European Union to establish relations with the exiled organization, now based in Paris. The European Court of First Instance threw its weight behind the MKO in December and annulled its previous decision to freeze its funds./end