12:22GMT—8:22AM/EST
EBADI – IRAN – PEACE – POLITICS
Washington, 3 July (IranVNC)—The National Peace Council, a non-governmental organization in Iran formed by Nobel Peace Prize laureate, Shirin Ebadi, met for the first time today. The objective of the council, which was formed on 19 November 2007, is the “prevention of a military confrontation with Iran”.
The group’s members met today at the office of the Center for Defense of Human Rights in Tehran, Norooz News reported. During the meeting, “various solutions to avoid war, economic sanctions and an approach to lasting peace” were discussed.
“We should have a society with a sustainable peace and we should avoid being in a situation where there is no war but also no peace,” AFP reported Ebadi as saying today. Ebadi has expressed opposition to economic sanctions against Iran because she says they harm ordinary people.
The group’s 60 founding members include Iranian politicians, social activists and intellectuals, among them Ibrahim Yazdi, the first foreign minister of the Islamic Republic and head of the liberal Freedom Movement party, and leading female film-maker Rakhshan Bani Etemad.
The US has said that it prefers a diplomatic solution to the long-standing nuclear dispute with Iran, but it has not ruled out a military option.
Sources: Norooz News, Agence France-Presse
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(Original article written in Persian.)