Exiled Iranian opponent says West appeasing Iran

According to Reuters, Maryam Rajavi, leader of the National Council of Resistance of Iran, said she had clear indications that Tehran would not give up its enrichment activities and that diplomatic efforts by the European Union and the United States to avert a crisis were only rewarding the Tehran government's strategies.

"The further they move forward, the more concessions the West is making," Rajavi told a news conference at the European Parliament in Strasbourg. "So incentive measures are just precipitating a monumental disaster."

When Europe "appeased" Adolf Hitler in 1938 by giving him part of Czechoslovakia in exchange for peace, it only encouraged him to start a war that cost millions of lives, she said.

"The solution to this crisis is neither appeasement nor war. It is to be found in democratic change in Iran."

The Paris-based NCRI is the political wing of the outlawed People's Mujahideen armed group, which figures on the EU's list of banned terrorist organizations.

It has followers among Iranian exiles living in Europe and the United States but diplomats and Iranian analysts say it appears to have little public support in Iran.

Rajavi thanked members of the European Parliament for resisting pressure to cancel their meetings with her.

"This is a position of principle and it's a message to European governments, namely that the blackmail practices of the Iranian regime has to be met with steadfastness rather than concessions," she said.

Diplomats said her visit to the EU legislature, even though she was not an official guest of the parliament, prompted Iran to postpone crucial nuclear talks with the EU in Brussels.

Rajavi canceled plans to meet parliamentary groups in what she said was an attempt to avoid giving the Iranian authorities an excuse to stop the talks between nuclear negotiator Ali Larijani and EU foreign policy chief Javier Solana.

That meeting was rescheduled for Thursday.

Rajavi was invited to the legislature by a cross-party group of EU lawmakers who call themselves "Friends of a Free Iran".