Iran Demands IPU to Give Special Care to Iraq

Iranian parliament speaker in a meeting on Sunday called on the secretary general of the Inter-Parliamentary Union to raise Iraq’s problem as an urgent agenda in the IPU meeting in Geneva. “We believe that Iraq’s problem is among the most crucial issues at present and we believe that the problem of the people of that country should be resolved through IPU’s assistance as soon as possible,” Gholam Ali Haddad Adel said.

He further noted his cancelled address to the Council of Europe in protest at an invitation to the head of the outlawed Iranian opposition, and said that Iran could not understand the events which happened in the Council of Europe in Strasburg last week.

“Unfortunately, western countries reach wrong analyses on the basis of the information they receive from disqualified groups and what happened in Strasburg was an instance of the same mistake,” the speaker said.

He also expressed regret that the terrorist group Mujahedeen-e Khalq Organization (MKO) – the banned armed opposition to the Islamic Republic of Iran, which has claimed bomb attacks and shootings on political leaders inside Iran in the 1980s and 1990s – has turned into a source of information for the Council of Europe.

Haddad Adel scrapped the planned speech in Strasbourg after Maryam Rajavi, president of the banned National Council of Resistance of Iran (NCRI) – the political arm of the MKO – met with European lawmakers on Monday.

Haddad Adel had been due to speak to the council’s parliamentary assembly on Thursday in his capacity as the current head of the Asian Parliaments Assembly (APA).

Rajavi had held a meeting with a group of right-wing MPs who belong to the parliamentary assembly.

“We can’t understanding how come the European Union provided a meeting opportunity for a group which the EU, France and even the United States – which is deemed as Iran’s enemy – have all labeled as a terrorist group and whose members are prosecuted by the Interpol,” Haddad Adel told the IPU chief.

He said he was very much keen on addressing the Council of Europe to brief the EU more about Iran’s views, “but I recognized that my protest to the double-standards of Europe bore more value than my speech.”

For his part, the IPU secretary general stressed the Union’s deep enthusiasm for listening to Haddad Adel’s words and views, adding that IPU attaches much value and significance to dialogue as it intends to resolve issues between different countries through dialogue and negotiations between their representatives.