![Iranian opposition leader Maryam Rajavi [R] presents a book that contains the names of thousands of what she called 'martyrs' killed by Iranian regime to Us Senator John McCain in Albania last week. Photo: Rudaw grab, MEK video](/_next/image?url=https%3A%2F%2Fimages.rudaw.net%2Fs3%2Frudaw.net%2FContentFiles%2F297086Image1.jpg&w=3840&q=75)
ERBIL, Kurdistan Region — Iran has said that the United States should pay for “its mistakes” after the US senator John McCain took part in an event organized by Iran’s largest opposition group that calls for “regime change” in Iran.
The US senator who chairs the Senate Armed Services Committee, told members of the Mujahedin-e-Khalq (MEK), some of whom who were relocated from Iran to Albania earlier this year, that “Somebody Iran will be free, somebody we will all gather in that square.”
Iran’s Foreign Ministry spokesperson Bahram Qassemi told reporters on Monday that the encounter shows that the United States has not learned lessons from past experiences.
“This is a mistake, which the US government should pay for like its other mistakes,” Qassemi said as he made reference to the meeting between the US senator and the Iranian opposition MEK leader in Albania, a named terrorist organization in Iran, blamed for thousands of deaths.
McCain told several hundred MEK members, also known as People's Mujahedin Organization of Iran (PMOI), that the Iranian government is attempting to expand its influence and “tyranny” throughout the Middle East, adding that had it not been for Iranian intervention and its regional allies in the Syrian civil war, the regime of President Bashar al-Assad would not be in power today.
He offered his condolences and support for the people whom he said “have suffered” at the hands of the Iranian government as they fought for “freedom.”
Among senior officials who have tirelessly advocated for the relocation of the MEK members is McCain, a senior Republican Party member who has had spates with fellow party member President Donald Trump.
“This is an example of the support that you were able to get in the United of America in the world to get you to freedom,” McCain noted making reference to the relocation.
But his moment of fame came when he told the attendees that the MEK members will head back to their country of origin.
“Someday Iran will be free. Someday we'll all gather in that square,” McCain said followed by applause.
“I thank you for being an example — an example to the whole world that those people who are willing to fight and sacrifice for freedom will achieve it. And you are an example for it in the world who are struggling,” he added, again received with applause.
MEK leader Maryam Rajavi also addressed members of her party saying that Iran has shown that it does not change its behaviors, therefore a “regime change is necessary.”
She said that the US “unfortunately remained silent” during the 2009 “uprising” against the Iranian government, as she made reference to the largest crowd of protesters since the foundation of the Islamic Republic in 2009 following a disputed presidential election results that saw Mahmoud Ahmadinejad re-elected for his second term in office.
She thanked McCain’s “continued support” in their struggle for “freedom.”
“Experience has shown that this regime is incapable of changing its behaviour,” Rajavi argued. “Thus regime change in Iran is necessary,” she said adding that the people of Iran “can and shall” bring about change in the country, coupled with a “firm” US policy on Iran.
Dozens of former US officials called on Trump to open channels of communication with MEK, just days before the president took office.
MEK was treated as a terrorist organization by the US until it was removed from the list by the State Department in 2012.
The MEK has established a self-styled parliament in exile under the umbrella of NCRI, a coalition of five groups dominated by the MEK.
The Paris-based MEK leader Rajavi is the group’s president-elect for a transitional period with a “mandate to oversee the peaceful transfer of power to the Iranian people following the regime's overthrow.” It aims to establish a “secular democratic republic in Iran”.
Iran considers MEK to be a terrorist organization and blames it for thousands of deaths since the group took up arms against Tehran, including the bombing of a gathering of Islamic Revolutionary leaders in 1981 that killed 75 people, among them Ayatollah Beheshti, the second-in-command to Ayatollah Khomeini.
The majority of MEK members have taken refuge in Europe and the US, increasingly so after the US toppled the Baath regime in Iraq in 2003, where they had military bases, which the neighboring Iran considered a threat to its own security.
Last September, the last 280 members of the MEK departed their Iraq camp near Baghdad International Airport and were relocated to Albania.
MEK leaders made Iraq as their base of operations during the eight-year war between Iran and Iraq in the 1980s after they fell out with the clerical rulers of Iran following the 1979 revolution.
