Iran International
Iran's foreign ministry Tuesday urged all parties to the Ukraine crisis to avoid escalation while accusing NATO and the United States of being “provocative.”
Etemad Online, website of reformist Etemad newspaper, quickly portrayed Saeed Khatibzadeh words as "Iran's siding with Russia."
"The Islamic Republic of Iran invites all sides to have restraint and believes that any action that caused escalation of tension should be avoided," Saeed Khatibzadeh said in a statement on the foreign ministry website. He said that NATO, under US leadership, had worsened the situation in by "meddling and provocative actions,” a likely reference to NATO refusing to rule out Ukrainian membership.
Reza Ghobeishawi, of the editorial board of conservative Asr-e Iran newspaper, tweeted Tuesday that the state broadcaster (IRIB) was biased. "IRIB's two o'clock news report on the Ukrainian crisis was fully supportive of Russia,” he wrote. “It censored the Russian troops' arrival into Ukraine.”
While social media had been awash with opinions and theories, most media in Iran stuck to reporting news with little analysis. Interest has warmed up since Russian President Vladimir Putin's decree recognizing two breakaway regions in eastern Ukraine.
Sacrificial meat
In tweets, supporters of Mahmoud Ahmadinejad have repeated his allegations in late January of a US-Russian “dirty deal” to invade Iran and Ukraine. The former president said he had “accurate knowledge” that the US would “allow Russia to invade Ukraine…[and] the US to move onto Iran.”
Amir Tafreshi, a founding member of the Justice-Seeking Student Movement, an Islamic student union, tweeted that Iran should condemnNATO for provocation and Russia for not respecting Ukraine's territorial integrity. "Any delay in the announcement of this policy will strengthen the suspicions that Russia dominates Iran's foreign policy,” he opined.
Iran's state broadcaster in its reports has highlighted that Yemen's Houthis, Cuba, Syria, and Venezuela have supported Russia's position. Among Iran's neighbors and allies, so far Turkey has condemned Putin's recognition of the breakaway Ukrainian regions.
Etemad-e Melli newspaper published a commentary by political analyst Ahmad Zeidabadi saying that a Russian invasion of Ukraine would not affect the nuclear talks between Iran and world powers in Vienna, even if it had “a destructive effect on circumstances” once agreement was reached in Vienna on reviving the 2015 nuclear deal.
Afifeh Abedi, researcher at the Center for Strategic Research, an arm of the Expediency Discernment Council, tweeted that Ukraine was “the living and perfect example of the sacrificial meat that Russia and the West have divided between themselves … It's Iranian statesmen's duty to only seek maximal securing of Iran's own national interests … as the sensitive stage of Vienna talks coincides with the developments in Ukraine…”
The letter, which was signed by Western-based secular and liberal groups opposed to the Islamic Republic, addressed the leaders of France, Germany, and the United Kingdom, calling on them to end “the failed and catastrophic policy of negotiating with and appeasing the Islamic Republic”.
They told Emmanuel Macron, Boris Johnson, and Olaf Scholz that the regime with which they are engaged in talks “is the same fundamentalist regime that since its inception 43 years ago, has had terror, hostage-taking, and sabotage, as an integral part of its ideology and nature, and its most important tools for blackmailing the free world”.
Diplomats have said that nuclear talks, which began last April to revive the 2015 nuclear agreement (JCPOA), have made significant progress and a final deal is imminent soon. In case agreement is reached, Iran is set to receive billions of dollars of blocked funds and massive sanctions relief.
The signatories highlighted that the “Islamist revolutionary regime has carried out hundreds of terrorist attacks around world”, emphasizing that it has engaged in killings, bombings, and hostage taking, as well as issuing fatwas (decrees) for murder of innocent people.
This is “the same inhumane, misogynist, and anti-LGBTQ oppressive regime that, despite decades of attempts at dialogue and resolutions by the international community, still enforces medieval Sharia law,” which includes stoning, amputation, and flogging, the letter read.
The opposition groups stressed that the clerical government “carries out large-scale executions and imprisonments, often with the aim of suppressing and silencing political opponents”.
The Islamic Republic soon after its establishment cracked down on opposition and independent groups and has continued to ban civil society initiatives. Practically all opposition has been sent into exile or imprisoned.
They criticized the policy of the West, especially Europe, towards “this anti-Semitic regime,” saying “appeasement and the payment of ransoms in order to normalize and attempt to change the behavior of this inherently abnormal regime” have only emboldened it “in its terrorist activities, criminality, and nuclear and military ambitions”.
The signatories highlighted Iran’s track record of “insolence on the international stage and criminal suppression of the people”, stating that “Nearly two decades of counterproductive negotiations and flawed deals such as the JCPOA have only given the Islamic Republic a chance to buy time. By deceiving the international community, it has brought its nuclear and ballistic missile programs to an irreversible stage”.
Then opposition groups called for action, urging the three European powers “to put aside, once and for all, the failed and catastrophic policy of negotiating”, saying that now when the Islamic Republic is at the lowest level of popular legitimacy in its history it “is the time to choose another policy: Maximum support for the Iranian people to end more than four decades of medieval rule and replace it with a secular democratic system that serves Iran's national interests through peaceful coexistence and cooperation with neighbors and all countries in the world”.
“This is the only way to prevent the world's largest terrorist state from achieving the atomic bomb -- a catastrophe that will plunge the entire region into a nuclear arms race”, they wrote.
They asked the European leaders that instead of the Vienna talks they should “enter into a serious and effective dialogue with the democratic and national opposition of Iran, which wants a free and secular Iran”.
“Sooner or later, the Islamic Republic will be overthrown by the brave and courageous people of Iran, and the day after liberation, the Iranian people will remember who stood by them in difficult times and who aided their oppressors”, they concluded.