Maryam Rajavi at Free Iran 2026: NLA the Only Path to Freedom

The National Liberation Army: The Only Path to Freedom

On the 45th Anniversary of the June 20, 1981 Uprising

The Free Iran 2026 Summit was held in Paris on Saturday, June 20, bringing together an esteemed gathering of international political figures and supporters. This year’s event coincided with pivotal milestones in Iranian history: the 45th anniversary of the beginning of the Iranian people’s nationwide resistance, the Day of Martyrs and Political Prisoners, and the anniversary of the founding of the National Liberation Army of Iran.
The conference featured a distinguished lineup of current and former officials from across the United States and Europe, including:

– Charles Michel – Former President of the European Council and Former Prime Minister of Belgium
– Boris Johnson – Former Prime Minister of the United Kingdom
– Petre Roman – Former Prime Minister of Romania
– John Bercow – Former Speaker of the UK House of Commons
– Dmytro Kuleba – Former Minister of Foreign Affairs of Ukraine
– John Baird – Former Minister of Foreign Affairs of Canada

– Alejo Vidal-Quadras – Former Vice-President of the European Parliament

The summit also drew prominent representatives from parliaments worldwide, such as:

– Baroness Nuala O’Loan of the UK House of Lords,
– Carsten Müller of the German Bundestag,
– Christine Arrighi of the French National Assembly,
– Naike Gruppioni of the Italian Parliament,
– Judy Sgro of the Canadian Parliament,
– Dominique Attias, Former President of the European Bars Federation

In her address at the summit, Maryam Rajavi outlined the movement’s vision for the future of a free Iran. Stated that over the past four decades, neither negotiations nor war have provided an answer to the threat posed by religious fascism. Emphasized that change in Iran must be driven solely by the Iranian people and their organized resistance.

The key points of Maryam Rajavi’s speech were as follows:
1. What are the commitments of the transitional government designated by the National Council of Resistance of Iran (NCRI), based on Maryam Rajavi’s 10-point plan for transferring sovereignty to the people of Iran?
2. Why are the National Liberation Army and the Resistance Units the only effective forces capable of bringing about change?
3. Why does the National Council of Resistance of Iran define the freedom of the Iranian people as rejecting both the Shah (monarchy) and the mullahs (clerical dictatorship)?

The full text of Maryam Rajavi’s speech follows below:

My fellow compatriots,
We honor the 45th anniversary of the nationwide Resistance—the day of Iran’s martyrs and political prisoners, and the anniversary of the founding of the National Liberation Army of Iran.
Forty-five years of uninterrupted resistance by an entire people against the monster of religious tyranny constitute our greatest asset in the struggle for freedom. This movement founded by Massoud Rajavi is destined to turn the darkest pages in Iran’s contemporary history.
He said:
“Khamenei is dead, and the people will rise to life. The Iranian nation, together with its courageous sons and daughters, stands poised for the decisive battle through uprising and overthrow—the battle of all battles to end a century of dictatorship and herald the blessed birth of freedom and a democratic republic.”

Our Slogan Is Peace and Freedom

Khamenei’s son, who for more than a quarter of a century was his father’s accomplice in massacres and repression, has now inherited the crumbling edifice of Velayat-e Faqih. Yet his is a transient rule, with the inevitability of its overthrow written across its forehead. This is the regime’s final stop.
To the remnants of this regime, we say: whichever path you choose, uprising and overthrow await you.
Against the rebellious youth and the rebellious cities of Iran, your missile cities are powerless.
Against an organized uprising, your staged street spectacles are of no avail, and the daily execution of political prisoners will not save your regime.

Fellow compatriots,
Today, let me first reaffirm once again that the Iranian Resistance, which for nearly five decades has stood for freedom and peace, and which for the past thirty-five years, through 133 major revelations, especially the exposure of the secret nuclear facilities at Natanz and Arak in August 2002, has been the foremost obstacle to this regime’s acquisition of the atomic bomb, welcomes any understanding that brings an end to the war and to the suffering of the Iranian people.
In Iran, no one except the remnants of the mullahs and the Shah has ever desired war.
The pursuit of nuclear weapons, warmongering, and interference in the affairs of neighboring countries are integral to this religious dictatorship’s strategy for survival, and it will not abandon them willingly. War has been this regime’s shield against popular uprisings, while peace and a ceasefire are, as Khomeini himself admitted, “like poison.” The overthrow of this regime is the responsibility of the Iranian people and their organized Resistance—true to the enduring principle that no one else can do for us what we must do ourselves.
The fact that in less than 24 hours after signing the Memorandum of Understanding, Khamenei’s son expressed opposition to it and declared that he was “opposed to it in principle,” exposes a deadly schism at the helm of the regime, showing just how unstable and precarious it is.

There Is Only One Way to Save the Iranian People

To the ruling mullahs I say: lay down your shields of war, executions, and massacres against the uprisings. Then you will witness what the eruption of decades of suppressed anger will do to your decaying regime.
The decisive battle is between the people of Iran and this dying regime, a regime that is trapped in a dead end no matter which way it turns.
It is a regime that has condemned tens of millions of Iranians to hunger.
Many survive on nothing more than dry bread, with scarcely enough to sustain life.
There is only one way—one way alone—to save the people of Iran: the overthrow of this vile regime through a democratic revolution.
Ultimately, this fate is inevitable for the regime.

The regime’s desperate efforts to prevent the grand Free Iran Rally reflects the mullahs’ fear of this destiny.
The Paris Administrative Court cited intelligence reports today and declared that the June 20 rally “is exposed to the risk of a major attack by the Iranian regime or Iranian monarchists” and that the SAVAK had threatened to bomb the demonstration and its supporters had been called to block the march.
Remnants of the Shah’s regime are accomplices and instruments of the religious dictatorship in the face of the Iranian people and Resistance.
They tremble and shake with any hint of the PMOI/MEK and the National Council of Resistance of Iran, because this movement is their highest red line and most serious existential threat.
Since the outset, and very explicitly, Khomeini declared on June 25, 1980 that he feared not the United States, nor the Soviet Union and others, but the Mojahedin who were in Tehran. He correctly saw the antithesis of his hypocritical Islam in the PMOI and for this reason, the slogan, “death to the hypocrites,” was his and his regime’s main motto. Finally, he issued the edict for the massacre of all the PMOI members who stood their ground.

Over the past four decades, neither negotiations nor war have provided an answer to the threat posed by religious fascism.
We warned that religious fascism and fundamentalism in the name of Islam constituted the greatest threat facing the world today. But no one listened.
Today, we repeat: a peaceful, non-nuclear Iran is possible only through the overthrow of this regime by the Iranian people and their organized Resistance.
The sovereignty of the people, the preservation of Iran’s territorial integrity, peaceful coexistence with neighboring countries and with the entire region—
Yes, all of these depend upon the establishment of a democratic republic.

The Real Force for Change

The path to Iran’s freedom is not a foreign war. Nor is it waiting for the regime to collapse of its own accord.
The path to Iran’s freedom is not the fabrication of artificial, fake alternatives.
The real force for change is on the ground. It rises from a people who aspire to a free and just society—from those devoted and enlightened young men and women who say No to both the Shah and the mullahs, together with an organized Resistance that has accumulated sixty-one years of experience in the struggle against two dictatorships.
Five days before the outbreak of the recent war, at dawn on February 23, 250 PMOI freedom fighters struck Khamenei’s headquarters in the heart of Tehran.
A few weeks earlier, during the January uprising, the Resistance Units carried out 630 operations against the regime’s centers and forces of repression.
You all remember that in 2003, at Ashraf in Iraq, approximately 20,000 light and heavy weapons, together with 20,000 tons of ammunition, were taken from the PMOI/MEK. Those weapons had been captured from Khomeini’s regime in one hundred operations conducted by the National Liberation Army of Iran, or had been purchased with the PMOI’s own resources.
In an official statement issued on May 17, 2003, CENTCOM announced that it had collected 2,139 tanks, armored personnel carriers, artillery pieces, and anti-aircraft weapons from the PMOI/MEK.
One must ask: for what purpose, and to whose benefit, were the weapons of the PMOI and the National Liberation Army taken from them?
Had the National Liberation Army of Iran retained its weapons and ammunition along Iran’s borders, there is no doubt that the fate of the Iranian people’s uprisings in 2017, 2019, 2022, and 2025 would have been fundamentally different.
For, as Massoud Rajavi said: “The Army of Freedom is the only path to freedom.”

Iran’s Future Lies in a Democratic Republic

My fellow compatriots,
During the January uprising, the rebellious youth in the streets embraced the path of the Army of Freedom.
Standing proudly before the regime’s kangaroo courts, they openly declared that they had risen to overthrow the regime.
Yet those who commanded a multi-billion-dollar machinery of fabrication and lies sought to hijack the uprising and portray it as an attempt to restore the monarchical dictatorship.
In practice, this served Khamenei’s interests entirely.
It served entirely as an instrument for suppressing the uprising.
Across the streets of Europe, they staged parades bearing the emblems of SAVAK, the Shah’s notorious secret police, and the insignia of the Imperial Guard.
They speak openly of imposing martial law.
Our Kurdish compatriots are bombarded by the Revolutionary Guard Corps, while the remnants of the Shah accuse them of separatism.
We say instead that autonomy is the undeniable right of those nationalities that have long endured double oppression.
Yes, Iran’s future, and peace and freedom in Iran, lie in the establishment of a democratic republic.
It is precisely for this purpose that the National Council of Resistance of Iran has announced the formation of a Provisional Government to transfer sovereignty to the people through free elections for a Constituent Assembly and a National Legislative Assembly within six months.

My Commitment

If you ask what guarantee there is that such a republic will remain faithful to these lofty ideals, seek the answer in the generations who, throughout a sixty-one-year struggle against both the Shah and the Mullahs, have entered the battlefield inspired by the ideals of freedom.
Time and again, the steadfast PMOI prisoners wrote to me from their prison cells:
“We shall stand firm until the very end.”
Now, in answer to these steadfast martyrs, to the martyrs of the 1988 massacre, to every steadfast political prisoner, to the generation that has entered this struggle prepared to sacrifice everything to defeat this regime, and above all before the people of Iran, let me declare:
Every drop of blood they spilled from your bodies throughout these forty-eight dark years;
Every lash that fell upon your backs;
Every minute of your lives spent captive in dungeons and torture chambers;
And everything in your lives that was destroyed by poverty, the pandemic, and the regime’s warmongering—
All of it only deepens my responsibility and that of the entire Resistance movement.
My commitment is an unbreakable covenant to secure freedom for all the people of Iran—regardless of their ethnicity, political conviction, beliefs, religion, or creed.
My commitment is to defend Iran’s freedom, honor, and independence against every form of dictatorship and every form of subjugation, however arduous and winding the road may be, through its seven trials of hardship and suffering.
But what of that?
We remain steadfast in this covenant.
This is my pledge, and it is our pledge.
Our covenant with the martyrs who fell for freedom.
Our covenant with the people of Iran.
Our covenant with Massoud Rajavi—
Until our last breath,
Until our last drop of blood.