I was glad to meet again with @PierrePoilievre and discuss our shared desire for Western policies on Iran that support the Iranian people's movement to liberate themselves from the Islamic Republic. He expressed his and his party's commitment to a secular, democratic Iran free from the dictatorship of the current regime and a process of free and fair elections in which Iranian decide their future. I thanked him for his consistent support for the people of Iran and their human rights and dignity and accepted his invitation to visit Canada again where we will continue our conversation on how to help the Iranian people and free the world of regime holding us all hostage.

Iran's Rights in the Caspian Sea Are Not Negotiable. The Islamic Republic, amid profound structural weakness and a deep crisis of legitimacy, is seeking to advance and implement the Convention on the Legal Status of the Caspian Sea (the Aktau Convention). This effort, undertaken without the mandate of the Iranian people and without a clear and comprehensive guarantee of Iran's historic rights, is deeply concerning and constitutes a serious threat to Iran's national interests. Under the 1921 and 1940 treaties between Iran and the Soviet Union, the legal regime governing the Caspian Sea was founded on the parties' shared rights and the principles of mutual agreement and common interests. Following the dissolution of the Soviet Union, the newly independent states reaffirmed, in the Alma-Ata Declaration (December 1991), their commitment to the treaties of the former Soviet Union and to fulfilling the international obligations arising from those agreements through the successor states. Accordingly, any fundamental change to the legal status of this strategically vital body of water must be made with the agreement of all littoral states and with full respect for Iran's rights. However, the Aktau Convention provides for the conclusion of bilateral and multilateral agreements among the littoral states concerning portions of the seabed and subsoil of the Caspian Sea, areas that were previously part of the shared waters of Iran and the Soviet Union. This sets a dangerous precedent. By circumventing the principle of consensus among all littoral states, it effectively weakens Iran's historic position and diminishes the country's role in determining the future legal status of the Caspian Sea. Since the signing of the Aktau Convention in 2018, I have repeatedly warned that "national interests cannot be safeguarded from a position of weakness." At the time, I also stressed that the criminal clique ruling the Islamic Republic sacrifices the interests of the Iranian nation and homeland for its own survival, and that its foreign policy repeatedly resorts to concessions and appeasement from a position of weakness. My position on the current process remains unchanged. I consider the Islamic Republic's attempt to ratify this convention to be contrary to Iran's national interests. No decision concerning Iran's resources, borders, or sovereign rights in this strategic body of water can possess legitimacy without the genuine participation and consent of the Iranian people. Iran's rights in the Caspian Sea are not negotiable, nor can they be relinquished. Any action that undermines these rights will be recorded in the historical memory of the Iranian nation, and those responsible will ultimately be held accountable by the people of Iran.

"History will remember Lindsey Graham for many things," writes @PahlaviReza, a leader of the Iranian democratic opposition. "I feel confident in saying that millions of Iranians will simply remember him as an American member of our family."

Senator Lindsey Graham earned the affection of millions of Iranians by standing with them in their fight for freedom. Today, I will attend his funeral in Washington to bid farewell on behalf of my compatriots. Read my tribute in the @WashingtonPost:

The Islamic Republic is continuing its war on the people of Iran. But Iranians are fighting back. Yesterday in Esfahan, citizens noticed the regime was preparing for a barbaric public execution. Reports circulated that the regime was set to hang three protesters from the January 8/9 uprising. At dawn, hundreds of brave Iranians gathered in the square to protest this medieval brutality and public murder. They jeered and shouted at the executioners. Sadly as the call to prayer played, two young men were hung from cranes. Security forces chased the protesters, firing on them with live ammunition, trying to kill more and more Iranians. The murder of protesters and other political prisoners are often done in prisons. But the regime, fearing the Iranian people will rise against them, is conducting them in public in an attempt to intimidate them into silence. Untold other brave protesters are currently facing a similar fate. Their lives hang in the balance. This is two Irans: the vile and evil Islamic Republic against the brave and heroic people of Iran. Iranians will not back down. They will fight. But they should not have to fight alone. The world must back these brave men and women.

In the early hours of this morning, in a public square in Isfahan, the regime in Iran, executed two more young protestors, heroes from the Lion and Sun uprising in January: Abolfazl Sepahi Badjani and Amirhossein Safari Hosseinabadi. This growing wave of executions is a sign of an increasingly desperate regime, that has lost all legitimacy. But despite enormous risk to their own lives, the people of Isfahan proved that the Islamic Republic's campaign of terror is failing. Risking bullets, imprisonment, and death, ordinary citizens gathered in Alikhani Square in a heroic attempt to stop these executions. Their courage showed that fear has given way to defiance. The gallows will not save the Islamic Republic. A people willing to stand unarmed before bullets and execution to protect one another cannot be defeated. We stand with the families of Abolfazl Sepahi Badjani and Amirhossein Safari Hosseinabadi, whose sacrifice will not be forgotten. Those who ordered and carried out these murders must know that justice may be delayed, but it will come. They will be held accountable before a free Iran and under the rule of law. At least eight more political prisoners from the same case remain under imminent threat of execution. The world must not look away. Democratic governments, international organizations, and human rights institutions must use every available tool to increase pressure on the Islamic Republic and stop its machinery of executions before more innocent lives are taken.

Just as the Nazi regime was not synonymous with the German people, the Islamic Republic is not synonymous with the Iranian people. True patriotism is standing alongside the Iranian people and their courageous struggle for freedom, prosperity, and the reclaiming of the homeland, not defending a regime that has stolen the life and strength of our land for 47 years.

My fellow Iranians, the great and courageous people of Iran, Today, as tensions rise and the possibility of escalating military attacks grows, particularly in the south of the country, I wish to speak with you; especially with the noble people of Sistan and Baluchestan, Hormozgan, Bushehr, Khuzestan, and all those living along the shores of the Persian Gulf and the Sea of Makran. The war and crisis our country faces today has one single cause: the Islamic Republic. But the main war, the Islamic Republic's war against the Iranian people, began forty-seven years ago and has continued to this day. All of the Iranian people have been wounded by this regime. Let us not allow anyone to say that southern Iran has only now entered the war. Southern Iran entered the war from the very day that Baluch children fell victim to crocodiles seeking water due to a lack of basic infrastructure; from the day that in Sistan and Baluchestan, the land of Rostam and the heart of Iran's mythology, young people were forced into fuel smuggling just to survive; from the day that Hormozgan province and Bandar Abbas, Iran's largest port, were abandoned to poverty and deprivation; from the day that Bushehr, which supplies a large share of the country's gas, and Khuzestan, the heart of Iran's oil industry, were deprived of the wealth they produced. But a free Iran will be a different Iran. With the establishment of a national, capable and development-oriented government, Sistan and Baluchestan, drawing on its strategic location, its young workforce, and its access to open waters, can become one of the main engines of the country's growth and prosperity. Chabahar can be the heart of Iran's trade and the gateway connecting the Indian Ocean, Central Asia, and global markets, by reviving the very same comprehensive plan that was to be implemented before the catastrophe of 1979. Hormozgan, Bushehr, Khuzestan, and the islands of the Persian Gulf can, through the development of trade, tourism, industry, and the attraction of investment, become the wealthiest and most advanced regions of Iran. My fellow Iranians, This warmongering regime has built no shelters for the people, nor does it have the capacity to defend the country's skies. Its leaders, hiding underground, are making military use of schools, hospitals, and other civilian centers, and have turned the Iranian people, including conscript soldiers in their garrisons, into human shields. In the war that the Islamic Republic has imposed on the country, your first and most important duty is to preserve the lives, safety, and wellbeing of yourselves and your families. For you are Iran's most precious asset and the true soldiers of the battle to reclaim the homeland. In this regard, my communications and media office will be publishing necessary guidance and recommendations to help keep fellow Iranians safe. Fighting toward and preparing for ultimate victory is a constant duty. In the final battle, the stronger we are and the weaker the Islamic Republic becomes, the faster and less costly our victory will be. Long live Iran.

While the Islamic Republic's warmongers hide in Tehran and their safe havens, they have abandoned conscript soldiers and young troops in defenseless garrisons, without even the means to protect them. This regime has once again shown that when forced to choose between the lives of Iran's sons and its own survival, it will always choose its own survival. The Islamic Republic has imposed this war on the Iranian nation, and the responsibility for the lives of all its victims, including the soldiers at Bampur garrison, rests with this very regime. We all wish for peace, security, and tranquility for all Iranians, but as long as this regime remains in power, neither lasting security nor genuine peace is possible. This criminal regime is more concerned with preserving Hezbollah in Lebanon and its other proxy forces in the region than with the safety of the Iranian people. For this regime, the survival of its terrorist arms matters more than the security and lives of the people of Ahvaz, Zahedan, Bandar Abbas, Bushehr, Chabahar, and all of Iran. So I speak to Iran's soldiers, officers, and all patriotic forces: do not risk your lives for the survival of the Islamic Republic. Your oath is to Iran, not to a regime whose leaders flee in moments of danger and leave you defenseless and abandoned. I extend my deepest condolences to the bereaved families of the conscript soldiers who lost their lives in the recent attacks on Islamic Republic military installations, and I ask the families of all conscripts to do everything in their power to prevent their children from being sent to serve under these dangerous conditions. No mother or father should send their child to garrisons that have today become killing fields rather than places of service and duty. These young people are the children of this land, not human shields for the Islamic Republic. They should not pay with their lives for the survival of a failing government. I also sincerely thank the noble people of Iranshahr and Zahedan who rushed to donate blood and assist the wounded soldiers of Bampur garrison. This national solidarity is a reminder of the truth that the Iranian people, even in their darkest days, do not abandon their own children. Iran needs its children alive, to build a future that is free, prosperous, and proud.

I welcome the UK Government’s move to designate the IRGC as a state threat to national security, involved in threats to life and intimidation. This is an important and welcome move by @keir_starmer and reflects the growing threat from the regime in Iran to UK citizens and interests. I hope the UK and other Western governments will go one step further and back the Iranian people’s fight for freedom. There can be no peace as long as this regime survives.

To the foreign representatives in Tehran to mourn Iran’s deceased dictator, Ali Khamenei: Iran is not mourning him. Iran is mourning more than 40,000 sons and daughters slaughtered on January 8 and 9 by Khamenei, Ghalibaf, and their machinery of repression. The regime is spending vast amounts of the Iranian people's wealth to stage this propaganda spectacle, yet not a single democratic leader attended. What you see today is not a nation in grief for its ruler. It is a nation filled with righteous anger, and that anger and heroic bravery will bring down what remains of this criminal regime.