Keith Kellogg urges Iranian dissidents to seize a historic opening

As the Trump administration pushes forward with a new Iran deal, retired Lt. Gen. Keith Kellogg told a Paris gathering of the National Council of Resistance of Iran — an exiled Iranian opposition coalition aligned with the People’s Mujahedin Organization of Iran (MEK) — that Tehran’s rulers are weaker than they have been in decades and urged dissidents to seize what he described as a historic opening.

“The window is open wider than at any moment in a generation, and windows do not stay open forever,” Kellogg said at the two-day event. “The theocratic regime in Tehran will not leave voluntarily. You must force it. The hope is here. Now must come the action.”

Kellogg, a retired U.S. Army lieutenant general and former U.S. special envoy for Ukraine, framed any disarmament agreement not as an endpoint, but as “the first step of something far larger,” saying it should become the foundation for Iran’s future without the current regime.

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Maryam Rajavi, the NCRI’s president-elect, used her remarks at the conference to argue that neither war nor negotiations had solved the threat posed by Tehran’s rulers. “A peaceful, non-nuclear Iran is possible only through the overthrow of this regime by the Iranian people and their organized Resistance,” Rajavi said, adding that any international agreement to end the war should include an end to executions of political prisoners and the killing of protesters.

Kellogg also invoked the NCRI’s 2002 disclosure of Iran’s Natanz and Arak nuclear sites, saying the group should play a role in pushing for strict verification of any agreement. “When I say trust, but verify, understand that verification is not an abstraction to this Council. It is your legacy,” he said. “You must be the conscience that ensures every barrel of uranium leaves, every centrifuge stops, and every promise on that page becomes a fact on the ground.”

The remarks came as NCRI organizers had expected tens of thousands of Iranian expatriates from North America and Europe to attend two days of events in Paris. French authorities banned a planned outdoor rally, citing security threats. A French court later upheld the ban, pointing to specific intelligence about alleged bomb threats and risks of violence involving rival Iranian opposition factions, including possible threats from Iranian regime-linked actors or monarchist groups.

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The NCRI’s main member organization is the MEK, which was previously listed as a terrorist organization by the U.S., U.K. and European Union before being delisted in 2012. The group is a major thorn in the side of the Tehran regime and has been the target of alleged Iranian plots in the U.S. and Europe, including a foiled 2018 bomb plot against the group’s rally outside Paris.

Despite the ban, demonstrators gathered at the site on Saturday. Police ordered the crowd to disperse and arrested around 20 people, a police source told AFP.

Ali Safavi, a member of the NCRI’s Foreign Affairs Committee, told Fox News Digital that the French decision amounted to “an unjustifiable act of capitulation,” arguing that Paris should have protected the rally rather than banning it, “Rather than yielding to intimidation, France should have defended the fundamental democratic right to peaceful assembly.”

Former British Prime Minister Boris Johnson also criticized the French ban, calling it a “tragic mistake” and saying Western capitals must allow Iranian opposition voices to be heard.

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“If the voices of freedom are to be heard in Iran, then we in the West must allow those voices of freedom to be heard in our capitals and around the world,” Johnson said during his speech.

Former Ukrainian Foreign Minister Dmytro Kuleba also addressed the event Saturday, linking Ukraine’s struggle against Russia to the Iranian opposition’s fight against Tehran. Kuleba said Ukrainians had wanted to join the rally and were “appalled” by the French ban, adding, “The people of Ukraine stand by those who defend democracy, freedom, liberty in their lands.”

He also pointed to Iran’s support for Russia’s war effort, saying that while Russian ballistic missiles were targeting Kyiv, drones using technology “provided to Russia by the current regime in Iran” were also striking Ukraine.

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“Like you, I know very well what it means to be attacked and killed and destroyed by the regime that currently holds its grip over the people of Iran,” Kuleba said.

The French government did not immediately respond to a Fox News Digital request for comment.