TEHRAN — UN Secretary-General’s Special Representative for Iraq, Staffan de Mistura, and Iranian Ambassador to Baghdad, Hassan Kazemi Qomi, met on Sunday to discuss the need for Iran’s ongoing and positive engagement with Iraq as well as with its other neighbors, UN news centre reported on Monday.
De Mistura and Kazemi also talked about possible increased support by Iran for Iraqi reconstruction under the International Reconstruction Fund Facility for Iraq.
The Iranian envoy raised the issue of the terrorist Mojahedin Khalq Organization (MKO) and asked whether the UN has a position on the legality of the presence of MKO members in Iraq.
De Mistura did not comment on the issue, but stated that he has no plans to meet with the organization.
However, Iranian state radio said the UN envoy said that MKO was a terrorist organization and any activity by this group was illegal in Iraq.
The MKO was set up in the mid-1960s to oppose the U.S.-backed dictatorship of the late Shah Mohammad Reza Pahlavi. It participated in the country’s revolution but soon launched a campaign of assassinations and bombings in Iran.
The group moved to Iraq in the early 1980s and it fought Iran from there until the United States invaded in 2003. The Americans have since disarmed thousands of the group’s members and confined them to a camp near Baghdad.
Tehran Times ,December 5, 2007
