Iranian MP Behrooz Bonyadi warned of the consequences of Syrian-Russian rapprochement at Iran’s expense, and said Syria and Russia are “sacrificing” Iran.

“Today, we see Assad increasing his harmony with Putin (in such) a rude way,” Bonyadi who represents Kashmar, Bardaskan and Khalilabad said at the Islamic Consultative Assembly’s public session.

Bonyadi added that Assad does not only underestimate the significance of the “martyrs of the shrines” in Syria, but also denies it.

“Martyrs of the shrine” is the term used by Iran to refer to its members killed in Syria and to the killed members of militias in support of it.

The Iranian Revolutionary Guards’ Quds Force has trained and armed thousands of sectarian militiamen from Afghanistan, Pakistan, Iraq and Lebanon to fight in Syria.

“It’s not unlikely that these two political pawns sacrifice us at the Netanyahu-Trump altar,” he said in reference to Assad and Putin.

Iran’s economic crisis

Bonyadi commented on the currency crisis in Iran saying trade between China and Russia was the reason behind it.

“The large number of imports and the exit of the currency are imposed on us by powers (like) China and Russia. The final outcome is gain (for them) and loss (for Iran). Poverty and lack of trust has thus increased,” he said, adding that addressing matters in Iran must not be within the military context but within the economic-political context in order to achieve a winning formula on the level of foreign policy.

“At the beginning of the revolution, it did not occur to people’s and officials’ minds that they will witness embezzlement, administrative corruption, poverty, favoritism, prostitution, hypocrisy, child molestation, wife beating, rape in schools and Quran classes, sale of kidneys and other shameful acts,” he added.

Bonyadi, a medical specialist and a reformist MP, warned the Iranian regime and called for “unity and for listening to the voices of the oppressed people who grave officials a chance of 40 years and tolerated (all these) problems.”

His statements are a first at the Iranian parliament and they come at a time when Iran is facing wide-range protests due to the collapse of the Iranian currency against foreign currency.

Protests have reached several Iranian cities as well as the Bazaar, the heart of Iran’s commercial economy, which played a significant role in the fall of the Shah’s regime in 1979.

He criticized the “security atmosphere, dealing with protestors outside the context of law and not tolerating those who voice opposition” and said this was all tantamount “to the first bell rung on the path to decadence.”

Commenting on the house arrest imposed on opposition leaders which the country’s supreme leader insists on upholding, Bonyadi said: “Some who have committed several mistakes enjoy immunity while others who enjoy national popularity and who are honorable live under house arrest (Mir-Hossein Mousavi and Mehdi Karroubi) and they prohibit publishing their images (reformist Mohammad Khatami). People (can) see this behavior that’s filled with grudge and hatred.”

Source: english.alarabiya.net