The son of Iran’s ousted shah said Monday he is in regular contact with various elements of the highly-divided Iranian opposition in exile, reiterating his desire “to serve as a unifying national figure, not a partisan one.”
Reza Pahlavi was speaking during a visit to Stockholm, where he gave a speech on the premises of the country’s parliament, invited by the conservative Christian Democrats and the far-right Sweden Democrats.
Pahlavi, whose father Mohammad Reza was brought down by the 1979 Islamic revolution, has repeatedly said he was ready to lead a transition if the Islamic republic fell in the war with the United States and Israel that erupted in late February.
The Iranian opposition remains deeply fragmented, with groups drawn from ethnic minorities, liberal circles and left-wing movements opposed to him and his supporters.
Asked what he was doing to bring together the different parts of Iranian society, Pahlavi replied that he was in regular contact with them.
“I talk to them, I hold dialogue with them, I meet them,” he said, without specifying exactly with whom.
He said there was “enough room” for anyone who prescribed to the four basic principles he believed formed the foundation of a “democratic discourse”.
The four principles were Iran’s territorial integrity; a clear separation of state and religion; equality of all citizens before the law; and the establishment of a mechanism to organise free and fair elections.
“Any Iranians — regardless if they are leftist, centre or right, monarchist or republicans, or regardless (of the) ethnicities that they represent — (if they) believe in this approach, (they) can work together and cooperate,” he argued.
Pahlavi has encouraged Israel and the United States to wage war in Iran, sparking division among Iranians.
The autocratic and repressive rule of his father, from whom he has not distanced himself, has also earned him enemies.
Pahlavi has failed to gain the support of US President Donald Trump, who has never officially met him and who has on several occasions expressed skepticism about his ability to lead Iran.
Inside the country, opposition figures, including the 2023 Nobel Peace Prize laureate Narges Mohammadi, face repression.
Even while imprisoned, she has been attacked online from abroad by Pahlavi’s supporters.
Shirin Ebadi, another Iranian Nobel Peace Prize laureate, has faced criticism from Iranians after being appointed to head a transitional justice committee created by Pahlavi.
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