{"id":17181,"date":"2019-02-15T11:59:08","date_gmt":"2019-02-15T16:59:08","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.irandemocratic.org\/public_html\/news\/?p=17181"},"modified":"2019-02-15T12:30:16","modified_gmt":"2019-02-15T17:30:16","slug":"iran-tehrans-former-ambassador-admits-regimes-terror-plots-in-europe","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.irandemocratic.org\/public_html\/news\/17181\/","title":{"rendered":"Iran: Tehran\u2019s Former Ambassador Admits Regime’s Terror Plots In Europe"},"content":{"rendered":"

Former Iranian diplomat’s rare confession triggers disputes among regime officials. Majedi admits\u00a0<\/em><\/strong>the regime’s\u00a0<\/em><\/strong>direct involvement\u00a0in terrorist activities in Europe.\u00a0\u00a0<\/b><\/em><\/p>\n

A rare admission by a former Iranian diplomat has entailed frantic reactions by many regime officials. Earlier, in January 2019, Ali Majedi, Tehran\u2019s former ambassador to Germany, acknowledged that the Iranian regime has been deeply involved in terrorist activities in Europe.<\/p>\n

\u201cTo back their claims, the Europeans have produced evidence that we can\u2019t deny. They have witnesses for their claims. There are some who think they can serve their country\u2019s interests through arbitrary acts.\u201d Majedi\u00a0said<\/a> in an interview with state-run ISNA news agency.<\/p>\n

Majedi states his remarks a few days after the EU’s\u00a0new sanctions<\/a>\u00a0were imposed\u00a0on a subset of the Iranian regime\u2019s Ministry of Intelligence and Security (MOIS) and two of its members for engaging in terror plots on European soil.<\/p>\n

\"\"<\/p>\n

In one specific case, Assadollah Assadi, a senior diplomat of the regime\u2019s embassy in Vienna, was arrested for his direct involvement in a failed bombing plot against the annual gathering of Iranian opposition in Paris. Assadi had personally handed over 500 grams of a highly explosive material to an Iranian couple who were tasked with carrying out the terror attack.<\/p>\n

Iranian regime officials tried to dismiss the sanctions as baseless and conspiracies by the PMOI\/MEK. The regime has been categorically denying involvement in terrorist activities, but the explicit confession of Majedi to terrorist activities has become the source of disputes among Iranian regime officials.<\/p>\n

Iranian regime\u2019s attempts to divert and justify Majedi\u2019s remarks\u00a0<\/strong><\/p>\n

A few days after Majedi’s interview was broadcast, the Iranian regime\u2019s foreign ministry issued a statement to divert\u00a0attention and conceal the facts in order to justify Majedi\u2019s remarks. While criticizing \u201cmisinterpretations of Majedi\u2019s remarks by foreign media and people with wrong deeds,\u201d the foreign ministry\u2019s statement lays the blame for terrorist activities on opposition groups.<\/p>\n

\u201cRegarding rogue operations, it is clear that [Majedi] has not made reference to any specific case and was speaking of a general concern about possibilities,\u201d the foreign ministry’s statement reads.<\/p>\n

The Iranian regime\u2019s diplomacy further claims that evidence provided by European authorities is not definitive and the claims can\u2019t be proven. \u201cAs [Majedi] has stressed, these attacks were probably conducted by opposition groups in ways that will be blamed on Iran,\u201d the statement further reads.<\/p>\n

\u201cForeign media and people with bad intentions are advised not to make their desired interpretations of this interview, and to not attribute their wishes to others,\u201d the Iranian regime\u2019s foreign ministry writes.<\/p>\n

Meanwhile,\u00a0a debate<\/a> between former Iranian officials from rivaling factions has been surfacing damning realities about the crimes committed by the mullahs\u2019 regime.<\/p>\n

\"\"
Debate between Alireza Zakani and Mostafa Tajzadeh<\/figcaption><\/figure>\n

In a public discussion broadcast by state-run media, Tajzadeh, tied to the so-called \u201creformist\u201d camp and former political deputy of the interior minister during Mohammad Khatami’s presidency, and former MP Alierza Zakani, a renowned \u201cprincipalist (hardliner)\u201d discussed different matters of state and the history of the regime.<\/p>\n

The rare comments have touched on two contentious issues that have been the sources of heated debates between regime officials for decades. The first is the chain murders, a series of assassinations carried out by government operatives against dozens of Iranian intellectuals in the 1990s. When the murders came to light, the Iranian regime\u2019s supreme leader Ali Khamenei denied his regime\u2019s involvement and blamed them on \u201cforeign enemies.\u201d<\/p>\n

The second event which Tajzadeh refers to is the 1994 bombing of the Shrine of Imam Reza in Mashhad. Imam Reza, one of the descendants of the Prophet Mohammed, is among the 12 historical leaders of Shiite Muslims. After the bombing, the Iranian regime made several arrests and broadcast forced confessions from people who claimed to be associated with the PMOI\/MEK and carried out the bombing on the orders of MEK leaders. As Tajzadeh makes clear in his remarks, the entire process was staged and made up by the regime.<\/p>\n

Tajzadeh\u2019s remarks reveal a recurring pattern in the Iranian regime\u2019s tactics: Committing crimes and blaming them on the MEK to defame the main opposition.<\/p>\n

The enemy\u2019s representative\u00a0<\/strong><\/p>\n

The remarks by Ali Majedi (Tehran’s former ambassador) also caused outrage among other regime’s officials. Keyhan newspaper, widely known as the mouthpiece of Ali Khamenei, the regime’s Supreme Leader, published a polemic titled, \u201cIran\u2019s ambassador or the enemy\u2019s representative?\u201d and wrote: \u201cThe more regrettable part of this interview is that our country\u2019s former ambassador to Germany has sided with the Europeans regarding terrorism charges against the Islamic Republic.\u201d<\/p>\n

The frantic damage control attempts by the foreign ministry following Majedi\u2019s confession, only underlines what the Iranian opposition has been warning about for decades: The Iranian regime’s embassies (espionage nest) and its diplomats (diplomat-terrorists) are security and terrorist threats to any country that have diplomatic relations with the regime.<\/p>\n

This has been proven by a trail of terror attempts that have surfaced\u00a0 in a number of countries in the past year alone, including France, Albania, United States, Netherlands and Denmark where the Iranian regime is trying to lash out against members and supporters of the Iranian opposition as the regime finds itself increasingly incapable of dealing with growing dissent and uprisings inside Iran.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

Former Iranian diplomat’s rare confession triggers disputes among regime officials. Majedi admits\u00a0the regime’s\u00a0direct involvement\u00a0in terrorist activities in Europe.\u00a0\u00a0 A rare admission by a former Iranian […]<\/a><\/p>\n<\/div>","protected":false},"author":13,"featured_media":12890,"comment_status":"closed","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[37],"tags":[127,491,499],"class_list":["post-17181","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","category-terrorism-fundamentalism","tag-iran-regime-change","tag-iran-regime-terrorism","tag-irans-state-sponsor-terrorism"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.irandemocratic.org\/public_html\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/17181","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.irandemocratic.org\/public_html\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.irandemocratic.org\/public_html\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.irandemocratic.org\/public_html\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/13"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.irandemocratic.org\/public_html\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=17181"}],"version-history":[{"count":12,"href":"https:\/\/www.irandemocratic.org\/public_html\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/17181\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":17195,"href":"https:\/\/www.irandemocratic.org\/public_html\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/17181\/revisions\/17195"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.irandemocratic.org\/public_html\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/12890"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.irandemocratic.org\/public_html\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=17181"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.irandemocratic.org\/public_html\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=17181"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.irandemocratic.org\/public_html\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=17181"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}