Exiled opposition says only Iranians can bring about regime change

The head of an Iranian opposition group outlawed by Tehran says that it was for the Iranian people to overthrow her country’s Islamic regime, as Israel conducts an unprecedented air campaign.

“The solution to this war and crisis lies in the overthrow of this regime and regime change by the Iranian people and their resistance,” Maryam Rajavi, president of the National Council of Resistance of Iran (NCRI), tells  a press conference at the European Parliament.

The NCRI is the political wing of the People’s Mujahedin of Iran, which Tehran regards as a “terrorist” group.

Rajavi, who lives in exile, warns against negotiating with Ayatollah Ali Khamenei, saying the regime “will never relinquish its uranium enrichment program.”

But she adds that “an alternative cannot be imposed from above, as was done a century ago when Britain installed a monarch by appointment. Nor can it be forced upon the people like the 1953 coup d’etat by the United States.”