STRASBOURG, June 18, 2025 — Addressing the European Parliament in Strasbourg on Wednesday, Maryam Rajavi, President-elect of the National Council of Resistance of Iran (NCRI), declared that the only path to lasting peace and stability in Iran and the region is “regime change by the people of Iran and the organized Resistance.”
Speaking seven months after her last address to the Parliament, Mrs. Rajavi said the “crisis of overthrow” now engulfs the clerical regime in Iran and warned that appeasement of Tehran has already resulted in broader regional conflict. “We see that appeasement has indeed led to the imposition of war,” she stated, citing the war that erupted on June 13 as a turning point.
Drawing historical appeasement policies, she reaffirmed her long-standing position that a “third option”—regime change without foreign military intervention—remains the only viable solution. “Neither appeasement nor war,” she reminded lawmakers, “but regime change at the hands of the Iranian people and their organized, legitimate, and just Resistance.”
Speech at the European Parliament- Strasbourg
We have repeatedly told Khamenei — and we say it once more today: go ahead, negotiate, and make concessions. Follow in the footsteps of Khomeini and drink from the poisonous chalice of abandoning the nuclear bomb and warmongering.
But… pic.twitter.com/sczBEbmanB— Maryam Rajavi (@Maryam_Rajavi) June 18, 2025
Mrs. Rajavi criticized the West for engaging in fruitless negotiations with a regime she described as unreformable, terrorist-exporting, and fundamentally incapable of change. “A viper never gives birth to a dove,” she said, adding that the clerical regime’s pursuit of nuclear weapons has never wavered.
Recounting the Resistance’s 2002 disclosure of Iran’s secret nuclear facilities, she noted that top U.S. officials at the time acknowledged the NCRI’s role in alerting the world to the danger. “Otherwise,” she said, “the regime would have built its nuclear bombs in secrecy.”
Despite its early warnings, she pointed out, the NCRI was blacklisted for years while the regime’s actions went unchecked. “What we have always wanted is to resist — just as you Europeans once did — against religious fascism,” she told the Parliament. “We only ask that this Resistance be recognized.”
The war that broke out at dawn on Friday, June 13, 2025, marks the beginning of a critical new chapter — both in Iran’s internal crisis and in the broader dynamics of the region. Yet the central and ongoing conflict — unfolding over the past 44 years since June 20, 1981 — is the… pic.twitter.com/b31YaJtobL
— Maryam Rajavi (@Maryam_Rajavi) June 18, 2025
Highlighting recent repression inside Iran, the NCRI President-elect cited over 1,350 executions since August 2024 and said Iran continues to hold the world’s highest per capita execution rate. “Western governments and media have largely ignored this grim reality,” she remarked.
She emphasized the widespread, ongoing protests and the over 3,000 operations by PMOI-led Resistance Units in the past year alone. “Nowhere in the world are protests and resistance for change as widespread and persistent as in Iran,” she said.
Calling the Revolutionary Guard Corps (IRGC) a central tool of repression, Mrs. Rajavi urged the European Union to finally designate the IRGC as a terrorist entity. She noted that the European Parliament has passed multiple resolutions condemning Iran’s human rights violations, but the EU’s policies still fall short.
European Parliament Strasbourg
Maryam Rajavi #Iran #FreeIran2025 pic.twitter.com/2u9hNPl90T— Firouz Mahvi (@FirouzMahvi) June 18, 2025
The speech concluded with a call for recognition of the Iranian people’s right to overthrow the regime. Quoting NCRI founder Massoud Rajavi, she said: “We will not return to the past, nor will we remain stuck in the present — the future will undoubtedly be realized. Yes, a democratic and free Iran.”
Mrs. Rajavi reiterated that the NCRI proposes a democratic republic based on gender equality, ethnic inclusion, abolition of the death penalty, and a non-nuclear Iran. A transitional government, she said, would relinquish power to a freely elected constituent assembly within six months of the regime’s fall.
“The people of Iran want the overthrow of this regime,” she concluded. “That is exactly why I am here today.”
A firm stance toward the clerical regime and standing with the people of Iran and the Iranian Resistance are the hallmarks of a principled—and ultimately effective—policy toward the mullahs. pic.twitter.com/d8w94g5GWx
— Maryam Rajavi (@Maryam_Rajavi) June 17, 2025