Analysis by PMOI/MEK
Iran, August 23, 2021—The Iranian regime is demanding Japan to release billions of dollars while it continues to dash toward nuclear weapons capacity. In a meeting with Japanese Foreign Minister Toshimitsu Motegi, Iranian regime president Ebrahim Raisi demanded that Japan gives access to $3 billion in funds that have been frozen in Japanese banks due to U.S. sanctions on the regime’s banking and energy sectors.
Also present at the meeting were outgoing foreign minister Mohammad Javad Zarif, National Security Council secretary Ali Shamkhani, and Majlis (parliament) speaker Mohammad Bagher Ghalibaf on Sunday.
“The improvement of ties with Japan is of great importance for Iran … Any delay in unblocking Iranian assets in Japanese banks is not justified,” Raisi said in his meeting with Motegi.
The demand comes after five rounds of talks between world powers and the Iranian regime in Vienna to curb Tehran’s dangerous nuclear program and revive the 2015 nuclear deal, formally known as the Joint Comprehensive Plan of Action (JCPOA). A sixth round of talks was adjourned after Raisi was declared the winner of the regime’s formality elections in June.
“Iran has no problem with the principle of negotiation … What is the justification for keeping the U.S. sanctions against Iran in place?” Iran's state media quoted Raisi as telling Japan's Motegi as saying.
It is worth noting that meeting comes on the heels of a new report by the International Atomic Energy Agency (IAEA) pertaining that the regime has produced uranium metal enriched up to 20 percent fissile purity and lifted production capacity of uranium enriched to 60 percent, both indications of a weaponized nuclear program. The regime has shown no sign of slowing down its nuclear enrichment to earn the international community’s trust.
This is just the latest manifestation of the regime’s lack of respect for global peace and its breach of its commitments.
In July, the regime’s outgoing president Hassan Rouhani said, “Iran's Atomic Energy Organisation can enrich uranium by 20% and 60% and if one day our reactors need it, it can enrich uranium to 90% purity.”
The regime has proven time and again that it does not deserve the trust of the international community on its nuclear program. Raisi’s cabinet is filled with veterans of the Revolutionary Guards (IRGC), the terrorist entity that runs Iran’s economy and is in charge of the nuclear weapons program. This gives more reason to worry about what the regime’s intentions.
The regime is blackmailing the international community to gain concession while experts are warning that even a return to the JCPOA will not block the regime’s path to a nuclear bomb.
“The regime is cheated on every agreement it has made, the NPT, the safeguards agreement, the additional protocol, and the JCPOA, even before the U.S. withdrawal,” said Robert Joseph, Former U.S. Undersecretary of State for Arms Control and International Security, at the Free Iran World Summit in July. “Who can believe that the regime does not now have a covert program, something it has maintained for 40 years? Who would sign yet another agreement with a party that has cheating in its DNA?”
Giving Iran’s regime access to funds will only encourage the regime to further renege on its obligations and sprint for nuclear weapons. As the Iranian Resistance has stressed time and again, only a firm policy will curb the regime’s nuclear ambitions. The continuation of the decades-long appeasement policy will allow Tehran to keep and hide its dangerous nuclear weapons program.
