Six prominent Iranian political activists have issued a statement urging the establishment to “build public confidence in domestic affairs” because it’s the best way to resolve the country’s nuclear disputes with the international community.
The statement from nationalist-religious figures, published today on the Melimazhabi website, indicates: “No doubt the foundation of this confidence-building will be to remove all obstacles to the public’s effective supervision of government decision-making and actions, by protecting the freedom of the press as well as independent parties and organizations and social groups, and also by reforming parliamentary and legislative power through healthy and free elections and political freedom.”
The statement, signed by Ahmad Haj Seyyed Javadi, Hossein ShahHosseini, Habibollah Peymon, Mohammad BastetehNegar, Azam Taleghani and Nezameddin Ghahari, goes on to note that by building public confidence in such a manner, the government would erase all doubts and suspicions about Iran both inside and outside the country, which would strengthen national unity.
The statement points out that over 10 years of nuclear negotiations, Iran has taken a “defensive” approach, which has fed international suspicions about Iran’s nuclear program.
The activists stress that this approach has resulted in sanctions that are now putting severe a strain on Iranian livelihoods.
They add that if all government actions are made under the direct and constant approval of the people with no secrecy, “foreign governments could not make excuses to create doubts and suspicions and pressure and sanctions.”
Recently, a former interior minister in the reformist government, Abdollah Nouri, also proposed a public referendum to decide the Islamic Republic’s approach to the nuclear issue, stating that Iran has a right to exploit nuclear power for peaceful purposes but it is not advisable to sacrifice all of Iran’s interests to the nuclear issue.
The West says it is suspicious of Iran’s nuclear program and has demanded closer international scrutiny, imposing severe unilateral sanctions on the country’s financial sector and oil exports as a way to force compliance.
The nationalist-religious activists conclude that their suggestion to build public confidence in domestic affairs will lead to national unity “in the light of which everyone will become a participant in the multilateral development of the country and resist the unreasonable and greedy demands of any foreign power.”
