In an exclusive interview with Euronews, Reza Pahlavi, the son of Iran's last shah and a leading opposition figure in exile, has sharply criticised the recent US-Iran framework agreement. He described any arrangement that keeps the current leadership in power as a temporary truce, not a lasting peace. “Any arrangement that keeps regime remnants in power is not a peace deal,” Pahlavi told Euronews. “It is a pause before the next war.”
The memorandum, signed on 17 June, came three and a half months after US and Israeli strikes on Iran killed Ayatollah Ali Khamenei and several senior officials, triggering a broader regional conflict. For Pahlavi, the regime's true intentions were clear within hours of the deal: Tehran executed Javad Zamani and Abolfazl Saedi, two protesters detained during the nationwide demonstrations that began in January. “The only winner from this memorandum is the regime,” Pahlavi said. “The day it signed this document for 'peace,' it executed two more Iranians for protesting on 8 and 9 January. That should tell you everything you need to know.”
Pahlavi accused the regime of murdering “more than 40,000 of its own people in two days” during the crackdown on protests sparked by hyperinflation last December. He argued that striking a deal with such a regime is “morally wrong and strategically misguided.” The agreement, he said, “throws a life raft to a dying regime, and the regime will use the pause to regroup and rearm. It has done this before.”
A Wounded Regime Is a Dangerous Regime
Under the framework deal, the ceasefire between Washington and Tehran has been extended by 60 days, during which both sides are to negotiate a final agreement on issues including Iran's nuclear programme. The US has suspended sanctions on Iranian oil for the duration, and both sides have committed to keeping the Strait of Hormuz open. However, the deal has been shaken by Tehran's insistence on full control over the waterway, with limited exchanges of fire between the two sides. As negotiations continue, contradictory statements have added to the volatility. Pahlavi warned that a wounded regime is more dangerous than ever. “A wounded regime is a dangerous regime, and it will lash out at the first opportunity. So whether the text survives 60 days or is extended changes nothing about the fundamentals,” he said. “The regime in Tehran will resume its nuclear programme, rebuild its proxies, and drag the region back into crisis as soon as it can.”
Pahlavi argued that stability in the region is achievable “only under one condition: the end of the Islamic Republic.” He insisted that the regime's ideology, its IRGC power structure, and its proxy network are inseparable from the regime itself. “You cannot swap one expansionist, warmongering dictator for another and call it stability,” he said. A free Iran, by contrast, would mean “no more funding for Hamas, Hezbollah, or the Houthis, no more pursuit of nuclear weapons, peace with Israel, and partnership with Iran's neighbours. That is the only durable foundation for the region. Anything short of this is a countdown to the next crisis.”
Pahlavi, whose name was chanted by protesters in January, described the Iranian people as the regime's “first and longest-lasting” victims and its most defiant opponents. “They stood in the street, they faced bullets, they demanded freedom in a country where just saying that word could get you killed,” he said. “They did not wait for the world's permission.” He expressed certainty that the people will bring down the regime, regardless of diplomatic decisions. “The regime is weaker, more divided, and more isolated than at any point in its history. It has lost all legitimacy.” The economic hardship Iranians endure, he argued, is “the cost of keeping this regime alive, not the cost of removing it.” He added, “A free Iran can become the South Korea of the region, prosperous and at peace. Our power is the unity of the people. We will prevail.”
Europeans Must Stop Appeasing the Regime
Pahlavi reserved some of his sharpest criticism for European governments, which he accused of appeasing Tehran even as the regime targets dissidents on European soil, holds European hostages, and supplies Russia with drones used against Ukraine. “This shouldn't be treated as distant geopolitics for Europe,” he said. “The regime brags about the murders it has committed on European soil. The regime runs criminal proxy networks across the continent, murders dissidents on European streets, takes European hostages, and sends Putin the drones now killing Ukrainians. This is what they do. They have always done it. And they are doing it still.” The EU added the IRGC to its list of terrorist organisations in February, but Pahlavi argued that more decisive action is needed. He called on European capitals to stop prioritising economic interests over human rights and regional stability. The interview underscores the deep divisions over the framework deal, which has been further complicated by Iran's claims of a US defeat and IAEA insistence on inspections. As the 60-day window narrows, Pahlavi's warning resonates: without a fundamental change in Tehran, any agreement is merely a countdown to the next crisis.
