Iran has built secret plant for nuclear weapons, exiled opposition official says

Europe’s appeasement of Tehran has failed, Ali Safavi tells Arab News global radio talk show

Iran has built a nuclear weapons plant and is hiding it from the world in violation of international law, a leading member of the country’s exiled opposition movement said on Wednesday.

The international community must act not only to block Iran’s production of nuclear weapons but also to stop the regime’s repression and brutality against its own people, said Ali Safavi of the National Council of Resistance of Iran (NCRI). Europe in particular had failed to support the Iranian people, Safavi said on “The Ray Hanania Show,” the weekly global radio talk show sponsored by Arab News that discusses Arab-American political issues and the US elections.

“The European countries, out of economic interests, their shortsighted interests, they are basically losing the strategic game. They should instead side with the people of Iran,” Safavi said.

“This regime is on its way out. For the Europeans to continue to deal with this regime commercially, politically, and lend it legitimacy, they are betting on a losing horse. And, of course, come liberation day, the Iranian people will remember all of this.”

Safavi said “no amount of political concession, economic concession, saved the shah from being overthrown,” referring to the late Shah Reza Pahlavi who was ousted in February 1979 after 38 years in power. “The mullahs of Iran are a thousand times more rotten, decadent, repressive and illegitimate,” Safavi said.

“It’s high time from our perspective that the Europeans abandon this policy and join the policy of maximum pressure and hold the regime to account.”

After Safavi’s radio appearance, NCRI officials said they would hold a press conference on Friday to unveil details of the secret nuclear facility in Iran, along with satellite imagery and the names of key regime officials who were involved.

“Over the past two decades, the NCRI has exposed some of the most important sites and centers of Tehran’s nuclear weapons program,” they said.

The international community must act not only to block Iran’s production of nuclear weapons but also to stop the regime’s repression and brutality against its own people.

Ali Safavi