By John Irish
PARIS (Reuters) -The leader of a Paris-based Iranian opposition group said after the announcement of a ceasefire in the Iran-Israel air war on Tuesday that the Iranian people should now bring down Supreme Leader Ali Khamenei’s system.
Maryam Rajavi, President-elect of the National Council of Resistance of Iran, spoke a day after the last heir to the Iranian monarchy urged Western states to accept that “regime change” is needed to bring lasting peace and regional stability.
She made her comments before Defence Minister Israel Katz said he had ordered the Israeli military to strike Tehran after Iran fired missiles in violation of the ceasefire.
“The proposal for a ceasefire and ending the war is a step forward for the third option: neither war nor appeasement,” Rajavi said in a statement after U.S. President Donald Trump said a ceasefire between Israel and Iran was now in place in the aerial war that began on June 13.
“Let the people of Iran themselves, in the battle of destiny, bring down Khamenei and the dictatorship.”
She added: “We seek a democratic, non-nuclear republic, with the separation of religion and state, gender equality and also autonomy for Iran’s nationalities.”
After the United States bombed Iranian nuclear facilities on Saturday, Trump raised the possibility of Iran’s hardline clerical rulers being toppled but his administration said the aim was solely to destroy Iran’s nuclear programme.
The Iranian authorities did not immediately comment on Rajavi’s remarks. Tehran says its nuclear programme is for peaceful purposes and denies seeking a nuclear weapon.
BANNED IN IRAN
The Paris-based NCRI, which is banned in Iran, is also known by its Persian name Mujahideen-e-Khalq (MEK).
It was listed as a terrorist organisation by the U.S. and the European Union until 2012. Critics question its support inside Iran and how it operates, but it remains one of the few opposition groups widely considered able to rally supporters.
“The people of Iran, in their century-long struggle, at tremendous and bloody cost, have repeatedly rejected the dictatorships of the Shah and Sheikh through successive uprisings,” Rajavi said.
Reza Pahlavi, the exiled son of the toppled Shah, on Monday urged the police, military and security apparatus to abandon Iran’s leadership.
But opposition to Iran’s clerical government is fragmented, with no clear recognised leader and a multitude of ethnic groups.
Any direct challenge to the Islamic Republic would be likely to require some form of popular uprising. Political analysts familiar with the situation have said that whether such an uprising is likely – or imminent – is a matter of debate.
The NCRI had remained in the background during the air war, communicating little as it sought to avoid publicly supporting a foreign war led by Israel, sources aware of its actions said.
The Mujahideen joined the 1979 Islamic Revolution but later broke from the ruling clerics and fought against them during the Iran-Iraq war in the 1980s.
During earlier mass demonstrations against the Iranian authorities, the NCRI was active on social media, documenting as much as it could from sources in Iran. Iran regularly accuses the group of fermenting trouble and several of its activists have been executed over the last year.
In 2002, the group was the first to publicly reveal that Iran had a uranium enrichment programme.
(Editing by Timothy Heritage)
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