Iranians opposed to the government of Iran are criticizing the choice of Senator Joe Biden as the Democratic Party’s Vice Presidential candidate, Kenneth Timmerman reported in Newsmax.com.

Timmerman quotes Kaveh Mohseni, the spokesperson of the Student Movement Coordination Committee for Democracy in Iran, as calling Senator Biden a “great friend of the mullahs” and alleges that “Islamic charities of the Iranian regime” seeking to end sanctions on Iran have helped finance his political campaigns.

While Biden has criticized Iran’s human rights violations, he is an advocate of direct negotiations with the Islamic Republic of Iran and has called on the U.S. to offer Iran a “nonaggression pact” that addresses their “emotional needs”. Biden also recently voted against a congressional resolution designated Iran’s Revolutionary Guards Corps as a terrorist organization for its involvement in sponsoring terrorism and the insurgency in Iraq.

Timmerman reports that the an organization dedicated to promoting a softer line towards the Iranian government called the Iranian-Muslim Association of North America held a lucrative fundraiser for Biden in 2002. Other prominent activists like the founders of the American-Iranian Council, the Foundation for American-Iranian Rapprochement and the Iranian-American Political Action Committee have donated significant amounts of money to Biden’s campaigns.

“Biden’s ties to the pro-Iranian regime lobby are not a haphazard affair, but a matter of conviction,” Timmerman wrote.