Le Vif-L'Express (Brussels) – The Iranian government summoned on Sunday the ambassador of Belgium in Tehran to protest against Tuesday’s visit of the Iranian opposition figure, Maryam Rajavi, to the Belgian Senate. She was welcomed by the Senate President, Anne-Marie Lizin, and several senators, according to the Belgian Foreign Affairs Department.

By Mark John

Reuters - The West has failed in a policy of “appeasement” with Iran over its nuclear programme and must hit Tehran with tough economic and diplomatic sanctions, the leader of an exiled opposition group said on Tuesday.

Maryam Rajavi, head of the France-based National Council of Resistance of Iran (NCRI), said Europe's acknowledgement this month of the collapse of efforts to bring Tehran to the negotiating table should trigger new harder tactics.

Reuters - Iran's Maryam Rajavi (L), the head of the National Council of Resistance in Iran, is greeted by Belgium's Senator Patrik Vankrunkelsven (C) and Senate President Anne-Marie Lizin ahead of her visit at the Belgian Parliament in Brussels October 24, 2006.

Reuters - Iran's Maryam Rajavi (L), the head of the National Council of Resistance in Iran, is welcomed by Belgium's Senator Patrik Vankrunkelsven (C) and Senate President Anne-Marie Lizin ahead of her visit at the Belgian Parliament in Brussels October 24, 2006.

Associated Press - In Brussels, the head of an Iranian resistance group told the Belgian senate she would like to see the West take a tougher stance against Tehran over its uranium enrichment program.

"For four years of nuclear negotiations, the regime has ignored more than a dozen ultimata from the international community," said Maryam Rajavi, leader of the National Council of Resistance of Iran. "Europe suffers from a lack of firmness and of principles when dealing the mullahs' regime."
 

Associated Press - Belgian Liberal Senator Patrik Vankrunkelsven, right, gestures while talking to the media during a joint press conference with the Head of the National Council of Resistance in Iran Maryam Rajavi, left, at the end of their meeting at the Belgian Senate in Brussels, Tuesday Oct. 24, 2006.

Maryam Rajavi was invited to Belgium by Liberal Senator Patrik Vankrunkelsven for talks, and will be in Belgium for two days. 

By Parisa Hafezi and Paul Taylor

Reuters, BRUSSELS - Iran postponed crucial nuclear talks with the European Union on Wednesday in apparent anger at an exiled opposition leader's visit to the European Parliament, but the meeting will go ahead on Thursday.

Rajavi held a news conference at the EU legislature in the eastern French city but canceled plans to meet parliamentary groups in what she said was an attempt to avoid giving the Iranian authorities an excuse to stop the nuclear talks.

Reuters - STRASBOURG, France - The head of an exiled Iranian opposition group accused Western nations on Wednesday of appeasing Tehran with incentives to halt uranium enrichment that she compared to moves to placate Hitler before World War Two.

Maryam Rajavi, leader of the National Council of Resistance of Iran, said she had clear indications that Tehran would not give up its enrichment activities and that diplomatic efforts by the European Union and the United States to avert a crisis were only rewarding the Tehran government's strategies.

"The further they move forward, the more concessions the West is making," Rajavi told a news conference at the European Parliament in Strasbourg. "So incentive measures are just precipitating a monumental disaster."

By Craig S. Smith The New York Times

International Herald Tribune - LE BOURGET, France Thousands of Iranians from across Europe gathered here in support of the National Council of Resistance of Iran and its leader, Maryam Rajavi, who was recently freed from French judicial restrictions that had limited her movement.
 
Rajavi's message Saturday to the crowd of 10,000 or more just outside Paris was that Iran needed neither nuclear weapons nor nuclear power but rather secular democracy, presumably led by Rajavi herself or her husband, Massoud Rajavi, who is now presumed to be in hiding in Iraq.
 
But the meeting's deeper message was that the Rajavi organization was still alive and biding its time.

By Brian Rohan

Reuters - LE BOURGET, France - Thousands rallied in support of an Iranian exile group near Paris on Saturday, calling on Western powers to prevent Iran from developing a nuclear bomb and urging democratic change in Tehran.

Maryam Rajavi, leader of the France-based National Council of Resistance of Iran, said the NCRI hoped to oust Iran's clerical rulers and set up a democratic interim government.

"The solution to the nuclear crisis and to avert a war is democratic change in Iran," she told a crowd in a hangar used as an exhibition hall north of Paris. Organisers said 30,000 people demonstrated. Police did not have immediate numbers.

By CLAUDE SALHANI, UPI International Editor

AUVERS-SUR-OISE, France, June 26 (UPI) -- The charismatic leader of the Iranian opposition, the National Council of Resistance of Iran, Maryam Rajavi, whose at times enigmatic Mojahedeen-e-Khalq have been accused of everything from terrorism to Marxism to being a secretive sect, discusses the MeK, the situation in Iran and the future of her country in an exclusive interview with Claude Salhani, International Editor with United Press International. The interview was conducted at her home in the French town of Auvers-sur-Oise. The following are excerpts of a long conversation with Rajavi, officially, president-elect of the NCRI.

United Press International: You have long strived to get the MeK off the U.S. and European terrorist lists. What more could you accomplish if the MeK were taken off these lists?

Radio France International - Interview with Mrs. Rajavi

The decision of the Paris appeals court to lift the restrictions on members of Iran main opposition group has upset Tehran. Leading members of the national Council of resistance of Iran based in Auvers-sur-Oise outside Paris are now free to speak to each other, move freely about France and travel abroad. Last Friday a French court decided to lift the travel restrictions imposed on 17 of its members following a police raid on the headquarters of the organization three years ago.

The authorities in Iran said the decision amount to giving a green light to terrorism and violence. Maryam Radjavi, the leader of the National Council of Resistance of Iran, told me she was pleased that French judges were not giving to pressure from Tehran

Reuters, PARIS - A French appeals court on Friday eased restrictions on an Iranian exiled opposition group with links to an armed guerrilla movement which is listed as a terrorist group by the United States.

The appeals court ruled that 18 members of the National Council of Resistance of Iran (NCRI), which seeks to oust Iran's clerical leaders and is the political wing of the People's Mujahideen, had the right to travel abroad, go to the organisation's headquarters outside Paris, and communicate with each other.

But it upheld a ban that prevents them from owning weapons, collecting funds from the public for organisations linked to their cause, or having contacts with donors.

Agence France Presse - A French court lifted restrictions on 17 members of the National Council of Resistance of Iran (NCRI) imposed following a raid on its headquarters outside Paris three years ago.

The appeal court said the 17, including the group's leader Maryam Rajavi, can now communicate between each other, move freely about France and travel abroad.

The NCRI members were placed under judicial investigation on terrorist-related charges following the July 2003 raid at Auvers-sur-Oise, which critics of the French government said was designed to curry favour in Tehran.