Iran Not Optimistic about Major Changes in US Policies after Bolton

کد خبر: ۹۲۳۱۷۵

تاریخ: ۲۰ شهريور ۱۳۹۸ - ۱۷:۲۳

Spokesman of Iran's Guardian Council vetting body Abbas Ali Kadkhodayee said that US National Security Advisor John Bolton's ouster indicates failure of Trump's policies, adding that Tehran does not see a strong possibility for Washington to change its policies after the development.

"Although the US hostile and arrogant policies do not change by one person's dismissal, John Bolton's ouster shows failure of Trump's policy of pressure and admission of the fact that warmonger Bolton had closed his eyes on realities," Kadkhodayee wrote on his twitter page on Wednesday.

Trump abruptly announced in a tweet Tuesday that he had asked Bolton to resign, noting that he "strongly disagreed with many" of Bolton's suggestions "as did others in the administration."

"I thank John very much for his service. I will be naming a new National Security Advisor next week," Trump wrote.

The tweet came just one hour after the White House press office said Bolton was scheduled to appear at a press briefing alongside Secretary of State Mike Pompeo and Treasury Secretary Steve Mnuchin.

Bolton was famous for his extremist anti-Iran policies and documents last year showed that he had received $40,000 to participate and address the audience in a gathering of Mojahedin-e Khalq Organization (MKO, also known as the MEK, PMOI and NCRI), terrorist group in Paris in July 2017.

According to documents released by al-Monitor news website, the US Public Financial Disclosure Report in January 2018 for Bolton indicated that he had received $40,000 from the MKO as speaking fee in Paris gathering.

The MKO is listed as a terrorist organization by much of the international community. Its members fled Iran in 1986 for Iraq, where they received support from then dictator Saddam Hussein.

The notorious outfit has carried out numerous attacks against Iranian civilians and government officials for several decades.

In 2012, the US State Department removed the MKO from its list of designated terrorist organizations under intense lobbying by groups associated to Saudi Arabia and other regimes adversarial to Iran.

A few years ago, MKO members were relocated from their Camp Ashraf in Iraq’s Diyala Province to Camp Hurriyet (Camp Liberty), a former US military base in Baghdad, and were later sent to Albania.

Those members, who have managed to escape, have revealed MKO's scandalous means of access to money, almost exclusively coming from Saudi Arabia.

The MKO terrorist group specified the targets as Major General Qassem Soleimani, who commands the Quds Force of the Islamic Revolution Guards Corps (IRGC), and Iranian Judiciary Chief Seyed Ebrahim Rayeesi.

The terrorist organization said it would “welcome” their assassination, adding that it desired for the ranking officials to “join” Asadollah Lajevardi, Tehran’s former chief prosecutor, and Ali Sayyad-Shirazi, a former commander of the Iranian Army’s Ground Forces during Iraq’s 1980-88 war against Iran.

Earlier in June, a leaked audio of a phone conversation between two members of MKO, revealed Saudi Arabia has colluded with the MKO elements to frame Iran for the recent tanker attacks in the Persian Gulf.

In the audio Shahram Fakhteh, an official member and the person in charge of MKO’s cyber operations, is heard talking with a US-based MKO sympathizer named Daei-ul-Eslam in Persian, IFP news reported.

In this conversation, the two elements discuss the MKO’s efforts to introduce Iran as the culprit behind the recent tanker attacks in the Persian Gulf, and how the Saudis contacted them to pursue the issue.

“In the past week we did our best to blame the [Iranian] regime for the (oil tanker) blasts. Saudis have called Sister Maryam (Rajavi)’s office to follow up on the results, [to get] a conclusion of what has been done, and the possible consequences,” Fakhteh is heard saying.

“I guess this can have different consequences. It can send the case to the UN Security Council or even result in military intervention. It can have any consequence,” Daei-ul-Eslam says.

Attacks on two commercial oil tankers in the Gulf of Oman on June 13, and an earlier attack on four oil tankers off the UAE’s Fujairah port on May 12, have escalated tensions in the Middle East and raised the prospect of a military confrontation between Iran and the United States.

The US, Saudi Arabia, and the UAE have rushed to blame Iran for the incidents, with the US military releasing a grainy video it claimed shows Iranian forces in a patrol boat removing an unexploded mine from the side of a Japanese-owned tanker which caught fire earlier this month.

It later released some images of the purported Iranian operation after the video was seriously challenged by experts and Washington’s own allies.

The MKO which is said to be a cult which turns humans into obedient robots, turned against Iran after the 1979 Revolution and has carried out several terrorist attacks killing senior officials in Iran; yet the West which says cultism is wrong and claims to be against terrorism, supports this terrorist group officially.

After the Islamic Revolution in 1979, the MKO began its enmity against Iran by killings and terrorist activities.

Fars News Agency