MEK Iran: Iranian Money Given to Prop Up Syria’s dictator.

Heshmatollah Falahatpisheh, a Member of Parliament from Kermanshah and member of the Majlis (Parliament) National Security Commission, admitted that the regime had given at least 20 to 30 billion dollars to the Syrian regime of Bashar-al Assad to help prop it up during the civil war in that country.

Falahatpisheh’s admission came in an interview with the state-run Etemad Online news agency. Falahatpisheh was the leader of an Iranian parliamentary delegation to Syria when the chairman of the National Security Commission. An agreement between the two regimes of Syria and Iran was made on January 17^th, 2017, which meant that the Syrian government was expected to pay back the money loaned to it within 25 years. The information about the loan was made public on December 6^th, 2017 by the National Council of Resistance of Iran (NCRI). People’s Mojahedin Organization of Iran (PMOI/MEK Iran) activists within Iran discovered the information about the loan.

The 20 billion dollars referred to by Falahatpisheh was spent on 6 contracts carried out by the Iranian Revolutionary Guards (IRGC), under the supervision of Ali Khamenei, Iran’s Supreme Leader, as well as oil. The 20 billion dollars is only thought to be the tip of the iceberg when it comes to the total spent by the mullahs’ regime since the Syrian civil war began in 2011. Military and weapons aid to the Assad regime is thought to have been up to 100 billion dollars in total.

The Iranian regime has been helping to prop up Bashar-al Assad, Syria’s dictator, ever since the civil war began.

Falahatpisheh said in the interview that the Iranian regime could have prevented the outpouring of dissent that took place last November if it had more wisely used its oil assets. The rise in the cost of gasoline was the spark that lit the November protests, but the amount of extra income alone could have been used to solve some of the country’s emerging economic problems, especially in the provinces. “We can distribute this 200 trillion rial (from the rise in gas prices) to the provinces to solve their problems. This is just part of the revenue,” he was quoted as saying. “In the budget, oil revenue is equal to a fourth of the share of taxes. This means that it is the people who are paying for the country’s expenses. And this is a country that is sitting on a sea of oil.”

Falahatpisheh’s comments contradict the regime’s attempt to get Iranian workers back to work, despite the dangers of spreading Covid-19. The regime cites economic problems, yet already has the resources to solve them. Meanwhile, the death toll and its effects on ordinary Iranians continue to rise, with over 43,800 people thought to have died already according to figured obtained by the MEK Iran. To try and hide the real reasons why the regime is facing these economic problems, its apologists complain that they are caused by the sanctions imposed by the United States.

“For Khamenei and Rouhani, the lives and well-being of the people are worthless. They only want to protect their regime from the threat of uprising. The criminal decision to send people to work is a crime against humanity and will cause the countless number of victims of the COVID–19 in Iran,” according to the NCRI’s president-elect, Mrs. Maryam Rajavi.