BRUSSELS, Oct 26, 2007 (AFP) – Iran is just two years away from completing its nuclear weapons programme and Europe must end its "policy of appeasement", the main exiled Iranian opposition group claimed Friday.
The National Council of Resistance of Iran praised the US decision to impose new sanctions on the Iranian regime, and specifically the Islamic Revolutionary Guard Corps (IRGC), which is accused of spreading weapons of mass destruction.
The Iranian opposition group is part of the People’s Mujahedeen of Iran, which is on the European Union’s terror blacklist.
Its foreign affairs chief Mohammad Mohaddessin said the Revolutionary Guard was in charge of Iran’s covert nuclear weapons programme and that the European Union should be following the US lead.
Instead, he claimed, the EU was doing 40 billion euros’ worth of trade with the Iranian regime, most of which went directly into the pockets of the people researching and developing the bomb.
"Two years is enough for the Iranian regime to complete its nuclear weapons programme," Mohaddessin told a Brussels news conference.
He provided no evidence for this claim, which runs counter to those of experts.
UN nuclear watchdog chief Mohamed ElBaradei said Monday that he "can’t judge whether Iran intends to develop a nuclear bomb," but that it would require up to eight years to do so.
Mohaddessin called for the European Union to designate the Revolutionary Guard a terrorist group and "abandon the policy of appeasement".
Responding to Thursday’s US move, Iranian foreign ministry spokesman Mohammad Ali Hosseini said the United States would fail again.