May 16, 2022: Mike Pompeo, the 70th United States Secretary of State, visited Ashraf 3, in Albania, home to thousands of members of the People’s Mojahedin Organization of Iran (PMOI/MEK).
Mike Pompeo, U.S. Secretary of State until January 2021, met and held talks with Maryam Rajavi, the president-elect of the Iranian National Council of Resistance of Iran(NCRI),
Also, Mr. Pompeo visited the Ashraf 3 museum, where the history and evidence of 120 years long resistance of the Iranian people throughout the rule of three dictators in Iran was demonstrated.
Secretary Pompeo and Mrs. Rajavi participated at the gathering of the MEK members in Ashraf 3, in support of a Free Iran.
Mrs. Maryam Rajavi addressed and welcomed Secretary Pompeo. The following is the text of her remarks:
Mr. Secretary,
Welcome to Ashraf-3, home to the Iranian people’s Resistance.
Those here today continue the Iranian people’s 120-year-long struggle for freedom. They include 1,000 tortured political prisoners during the Shah’s dictatorship and those imprisoned under the mullahs’ tyranny.
In visiting the Resistance’s Museum, you saw a glimpse of the Iranian people’s enormous pain and suffering, on the one hand and their struggle for freedom, on the other.
The Iranian people and the mullahs’ regime have faced off ferociously in the past 43 years. And this fight will continue until a free democratic republic is established in Iran.
For a while, the mullahs tried to portray Iraq as the enemy. Then, they tried to portray the United States as the enemy. But the people of Iran and the MEK say that our enemy is in Iran.
The mullahs said the MEK were terrorists, a cult, and the enemies of God. They claimed the MEK did not have any base of support in Iran. There are many similar and baseless allegations.
There are two significant factors to the conflict in today’s Iran:
On the one hand, we see the regime at its weakest point. On the other, we see the people’s maximum anger and discontent. The outcome of these factors has been the progress and expansion of the organized Resistance.
The West ignored the Iranian people and their organized resistance as the decisive factor in the developments pertaining to Iran for four decades. It thus enabled the mullahs such that they are on the verge of having a nuclear bomb.
As you said last September, you are “on the right side of this fight.” You said, and I quote, “Iran will never return to rule by a dictatorial Shah or theocratic regime. The central fight is the one in the streets, and in the mosques, and in the minds of the Iranian people – it is the divide between the people and the organized opposition seeking freedom and democracy on one side and the entirety of the regime on the other. I have been in this fight on the right side for over a decade now.”
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After that, Mr. Pompeo addressed to the MEK members and stated:
“I’d also like to recognize President-elect Maryam Rajavi. Under her leadership, the National Council of Resistance of Iran is laying the groundwork for a free, sovereign, and democratic republic in Iran.”
Mr. Pompeo added: “A serious missing factor in U.S. policy towards Iran has been the lack of political support for the organized opposition. “The regime in Tehran went to the extreme to massacre 30,000 political prisoners, whose main targets and a majority of victims were the MEK.
The threat of attack extends far beyond Iran’s borders, with the regime having waged terror plots in Europe and the U.S. against the leaders of this movement.
Now, to correct the Iran policy, no matter who is in the White House, it is a necessity for the U.S. administration to reach out to the Iranian Resistance and take advantage of its tremendous capabilities. Ashraf 3 is one such place to focus on.”
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