Exiled Iranian prince Reza Pahlavi said on Friday that Iran’s resources should be directed toward peace rather than conflict once the Islamic Republic ends, calling for a new framework he described as the “Cyrus Accords” to follow the 2020 Abraham Accords.
Pahlavi made the remarks during a ceremony in Toronto marking Cyrus the Great Day, an annual commemoration of the founder of the Achaemenid Empire. The event, attended by Iranian-Canadian artists and members of the diaspora, featured musical performances and speeches highlighting Iran’s pre-Islamic heritage.
He said that under a new government, Iran could “turn its resources from supporting violence to advancing peace” and contribute to regional stability. “Iran will elevate the Abraham Accords to the Cyrus Accords,” he said.
The Abraham Accords, brokered by the United States under President Donald Trump in 2020, normalized diplomatic relations between Israel and several Arab states, including the United Arab Emirates and Bahrain. Later joined by Morocco and Sudan, the accords opened direct air links and expanded trade and defense cooperation. They represented the first major diplomatic rapprochement between Israel and Arab nations in decades.
Pahlavi invoked Cyrus the Great as a historical figure symbolizing tolerance and national identity. He said the principles attributed to Cyrus, “Iranian identity, humanity, freedom, and tolerance,” were essential to rebuilding Iran’s political and social order.
The son of Iran’s last Shah said national sovereignty must be returned to the people. He described the Islamic Republic as “corrupt and malevolent” and said its end would allow Iran to rejoin the international community “as a force for peace.”
“Iran is under the occupation of Islamists,” he said, adding that the country’s “window for rescue is limited.” He said Iranians must be prepared to “take responsibility for their destiny” and rebuild a government based on freedom and respect for human rights.
Kazem Gharibabadi, Iran’s deputy foreign minister, said the three countries sent a joint letter to IAEA Director General Rafael Grossi arguing that Resolution 2231, which endorsed the 2015 Joint Comprehensive Plan of Action (JCPOA), formally expired on Oct. 18.
He said the letter followed a previous joint message the countries had sent to the UN secretary-general and the president of the Security Council, declaring the resolution terminated. “All provisions of Resolution 2231 have now lapsed, and attempts by European countries to reactivate sanctions through the so-called snapback mechanism are illegal and without effect,” Gharibabadi said, according to state media.
In their letter, the ambassadors of Iran, Russia and China wrote: “With this termination, the reporting mandate of the Director General of the IAEA concerning verification and monitoring under Security Council Resolution 2231 has come to an end.” The letter added that the IAEA Board of Governors’ decision of Dec. 15, 2015, which authorized verification and monitoring for up to 10 years or until the agency issued a broader conclusion on Iran’s nuclear program, whichever came first, “remains valid and constitutes the sole guidance which the IAEA Secretariat is obliged to follow.”
According to the three governments, “as of 18 October 2025, this matter will be automatically removed from the Board of Governors’ agenda, and no further action will be required in this context.”
Iran, Russia and China have maintained that the resolution’s expiry removes Iran’s nuclear file from the Security Council’s agenda and ends the IAEA’s mandate tied to it.
Grossi urges diplomacy, notes Iran stays in NPT
IAEA chief Rafael Grossi said earlier this week that diplomacy must prevail to avoid renewed conflict and noted that Iran had not withdrawn from the Nuclear Non-Proliferation Treaty despite tensions. He said continued cooperation between Iran and the agency was vital to prevent escalation.
Grossi told Le Temps newspaper on Wednesday that Iran holds enough uranium to build ten nuclear weapons if it enriched further, though there is no evidence it seeks to do so. He said Israeli and US airstrikes in June had caused “severe” damage to Iran’s nuclear facilities in Isfahan, Natanz and Fordow, but that the country’s technical know-how “has not vanished.”
Tehran and the IAEA have yet to agree on a framework to resume full inspections at the bombed sites. Grossi said Tehran was allowing inspectors access “in dribs and drabs” for security reasons, adding that efforts were continuing to rebuild trust and restore routine monitoring.
Jalilian, who held a senior scientific role in the nuclear medicines field and had previously worked for the IAEA for about nine years, was arrested in August 2024.
His wife, Saeedeh Varesteh, said that he was convicted without access to a lawyer of his choosing and denied family contact for months.
“The court found him guilty of espionage for Britain and imposed a 10-year sentence,” Varesteh told Iran International.
Over the years, Jalilian made several trips to Iran to visit his family and attend scientific conferences, but “each time, he was summoned and interrogated by security agents at undisclosed locations, including some hotels in Tehran,” his wife said.
According to his wife, Jalilian attended a meeting just days before his arrest with Amirhossein Faghihi, then head of Iran’s Nuclear Science and Technology Research Institute, who was later killed in Israeli strikes during the 12-day war in June.
Varesteh said her husband told her he was “under intense pressure from security forces” in the days leading up to his arrest, though she did not specify what that pressure involved.
On August 7, 2024, five agents accompanied him to his mother’s home and seized his belongings. “After that, we had no information about where Amirreza was being held,” she said.
The family sought help from several senior officials, including Mohammad Eslami, head of the Atomic Energy Organization of Iran, and his predecessor, Ali Akbar Salehi. “All we were told,” Varesteh said, “was to wait and pray.”
According to her, Jalilian’s family also reached out to Rafael Grossi, Director General of the International Atomic Energy Agency, and other senior officials within the organization to seek his release, but their efforts have so far yielded no results.
Even the United Nations representative in Tehran twice requested permission to meet with Jalilian, but both requests were denied by Iranian judicial and security authorities, she added.
“He is a scientist, not a spy,” his wife said.
Jalilian began his career working in radiopharmaceutical development at Iran’s nuclear research institute before being selected in 2014 for a role at the IAEA in Vienna, where he published several papers.
No public comment has been made by Iranian authorities about the case.
The case comes amid an intensifying crackdown by Iranian security services on scientists, dual-citizens and other professionals accused of espionage.
Shamkhani, a senior advisor to Supreme Leader Ali Khamenei, has recently come under public scrutiny in Iran after a leaked video showed his daughter’s lavish wedding featuring unveiled women, Western-style celebrations and his daughter the bride.
“You are the same person who, in January 1979 in Ahvaz, along with your accomplice Mohsen Rezaei, assassinated Malek Mohammad Boroujerdi, my father,” Boroujerdi wrote on Instagram on Monday, addressing Shamkhani.
Boroujerdi appeared on Iran International on Tuesday, elaborating on his accusations against senior Iranian officials, including Shamkhani and former Islamic Revolutionary Guard Corps (IRGC) commander Mohsen Rezaei.
“The Mansouron Group, formed in 1975 by figures such as Mohsen Rezaei, Shamkhani and others created a terrorist cell that carried out assassinations in Khuzestan province, including my father’s killing in the city of Ahvaz,” Boroujerdi said.
Mansouroun was one of seven Islamist groups active before the 1979 revolution that later joined together to form the core of Iran’s Revolutionary Guards. The group, led by figures including Mohsen Rezai, united with six others — Towhidi Saf, Towhidi Badr, Falagh, Ommat-e Vahida, Saheban-e Safa, and Mo’tahedin-e Eslam — to establish the force that became the Islamic Revolutionary Guard Corps.
“Ayatollah Khomeini had urged oil company employees to strike, aiming to cripple the Shah’s oil-dependent economy. My father opposed this strategy for toppling the Shah’s government," he added.
"As a member of oil company management, he and others were placed on an assassination list circulated in Ahvaz mosques and executed in January."
Mehrzad Boroujerdi is a professor of political science at the Missouri University of Science and Technology and the author of the book ‘Iranian Intellectuals and the West.’
Shamkhani, a former secretary of Iran’s Supreme National Security Council and now a member of the Expediency Council, has long been a key figure in Iran’s security establishment. He also serves as the Supreme Leader’s representative on the National Defense Council.
He and his family have come under intense criticism by dissidents for their apparent wealth and influence as many Iranians struggle with costs of living wrought by corruption, mismanagement and sanctions from Western foes of Tehran's policies.
Hossein, his son, has been described in a series of reports by Bloomberg as a key overseer of Iran's efforts to circumvent sanctions, enriching himself in the process. Shamkhani the younger has insisted he is a legitimate businessman.
“Over the past 45 years, most senior military and security positions in the Islamic Republic have been held by members of the Mansouron Group including Shamkhani, Rezaei, and Gholam Ali Rashid (who was killed in an Israeli attack),” Boroujerdi said.
The Mansouron Group was an Iranian guerrilla organization active in the 1960s and 1970s, primarily in Khuzestan province, opposing the Pahlavi regime through armed struggle and political activism.
Formed around 1969, it later merged with other militant groups and played a role in the 1979 Islamic Revolution in Iran.
