A number of supporters of terrorist organization of Mojahedin-e Khalq who waved the flags of Israel protested to the visit of Iranian foreign minister Manouchehr Mottaki to Norway.
According to IRNA, around 50 MKO members and supporters who held and waved the flags of Zionist regime shouted slogans to protest to Mottaki’s visit to that country.
Mottaki is visiting Norway while traveling to a number of European countries.
IRNA
The Iranian Deputy Foreign Minister, Manouchehr Mohammadi, in a speech delivered at the international conference on the culture of resistance held in Tehran said that “given that Iran has been a victim of terrorism more than any other country, it is quite sensitive to it”. It is the first international conference of the kind opened on the anniversary of Morteza Motahhari’s assassination, a victim of the wave of terrors triggered by MKO following the Islamic revolution.
He urged that the United Nations should define state terrorism within the framework of international terrorism and severely condemn it. He said that no comprehensive definition has been presented by the UN for terrorism.
He added that difference of views on terrorism is the most important obstacle facing the UN General Assembly towards campaign against it after 2001.
"Today terrorism has been divided into two types, including good and bad. The present activities of the terrorist MKO group is a clear example of the West’s dual standards in approaching terrorism," he said.
Urging the need for a broad-based definition of terrorism, he said that it should be defined in such a way as to include governments’ use of force (state terrorism).
IRNA – 02/05/2007
Visiting Iraqi Foreign Minister Hoshyar Zebari said here Wednesday evening " Iraq government has decided to expel members of the terrorist group Mujahedin Khalq Organization (MKO) from the country."
In a joint press conference with his Iranian counterpart Manouchehr Mottaki, Zebari said, " Iraq government has set up a committee to uphold the decision."
He said, "We have negotiated with several European countries to settle the expelled MKO members."
Concerning the sad event of detaining Iranian diplomats in Iraq, Jalal Sharafi, Zebari said a committee has been established to investigate the case from different aspects.
The outcome of investigation will introduce all those who were involved in the event, the Iraqi foreign minister added.
Responding to a question concerning kidnapped Iranian diplomats in Iraq, Zebari said, " our government will do its best to release the Iranians and we hope they can be freed soon and return to their families."
The Iraqi foreign minister also said, " We should not make a connection between freedom of Iranian diplomats and Iran’s participation in Sharm al-Sheikh conference."
Iran’s foreign minister responding to a question said, " Iraqi government is responsible for protection of kidnapped Iranian diplomats’ life."
Concerning Sharm al-Sheikh conference, Mottaki said, " There are certain ambiguities in this concern, but we are going to consider the case, especially after Mr. Zebari’s elaboration on the matter and we will declare our stance soon."
IRNA – April 26,2007
French prosecutor announced that new charges have been added to the case against MKO and the head of the group Maryam Rajavi.
AFP’s report from Paris on Wednesday indicate that prosecutor general has asked the court to add money laundering and fraud charges to the case, which includes connection with terrorism and saboteur groups.
According to the report, prosecutor has submitted this request to anti-terror court on March 19.
MKO collected public donations in Paris and sent the money to bank accounts abroad, judges say.
On June 17, 2003, French police attacked MKO headquarters in the suburbs of French capital and arrested 164 MKO members including Maryam Rajavi.
The group has been listed as terrorist by the US and EU.
IRNA, April 07, 2007
IRNA quoted Al-Edaleh newspaper writing: "Kamal Saedi, Iraqi member of parliament from the list of Unity Coalition asked the Iraqi government to discuss the dangers of MKO’s presence in Iraq seriously. "
IRNA – 2007/03/11
A number of British MPs in the House of Commons discussed the issue of Iran’s nuclear program.
In the meeting, the report of which was published by British Parliament’s website, UK Foreign Office minister Kim Howells responded to some MPs’ request for lifting MKO from terror list: "On the proscription of Mojahedin-e Khalq, the Home Office rejected an application for de-proscription last year and that is, strictly speaking, a matter for the Home Office."
"The MEK is proscribed under the Terrorism Act 2000 and its involvement in violence means that it has little support in Iran. The MEK claims to support human rights and democracy, but it is hard to square that with its authoritarian structure and claims by respected human rights non-governmental organisations of serious violations of the rights of its own members," he added.
In response to protests on terrorist designation of MKO, Mark Pritchard said:
"All solutions on Iran, whether by the international community or Iranian exiles, should be peaceful. They shouldn’t be aimed at weakening the position of current regime."
"I believe that we should respect Foreign Office’s decision to band the MKO".
IRNA – 2007/03/01
A group of Argentinian political, social, religious and human rights personalities, as well as syndicates, artists, and ethnic groups have in a letter to IRI President Mahmoud Ahmadinejad voiced solidarity with Iranian nation and government against George Bush’s militarist, occupying regime’s threats.
The letter is signed by Luis Dalian, Ebb Pasture, D. Bona Fannie, Priest Lois Farinello, Oswaldo Bayer, Alejandro Corona, Alejandro Frnandez, Paulovski Edwardo, Carlos Aznares, Nora D. Cortinas, Fernando Solanas, and Ricardo Langini.
The letter a copy of which was faxed to IRNA on Monday reads in part: As Argentinian citizens we denounced the court verdict issued on involvement of Iran in attack against AMIA Jewish Center in July 1994 in Buenos Aires.
We believe the said verdict has not been issued in order to find the real culprits behind that horrendous crime, but in a bid to serve the interests of the officials of the time and under the pressure of the United States, and that it has been highlighted today to justify a probable US attack against Iran today.
The letter elsewhere reads: Just like the case of the criminal occupation of Iraq on the pretext of existence of weapons of mass destruction there, non of which were found there later and revealing of the lies of US administration later on, this move today can be used as a new pretext for another military invasion against Iran.
The Argentinian elites have reiterated, "We strongly believe fact finding regarding the death of 84 victims of AMIA terrorist attack must be entirely led by the Argentinian people and their concerned legal organs and therefore we strongly denounce trampling upon our national sovereignty by Bush government and the Zionist regime by launching judiciary investigations here."
The letter stresses, "How could they rely on the accusations brought up by disgraced Judge Juan Jose Calleano who lost his judiciary position for having received bribes from Israel to distort the judiciary process, while the Interpol and the EU have announced that the findings of that court are null and void?
The Argentinian elites have stressed, "The US and Israeli officials are not ethically qualified for leading any campaign against terrorism and the Argentineans should not permit them to find pretexts or launching attacks against other nations resorting to pretexts that have phony roots in this land."
IRNA – 2007/02/28
The European Parliament, in a meeting Tuesday, clarified that a European court ruling on the Mujahedin Khalq Organization (MKO) in December referred to procedural matters and in no way changes the status of the MKO as a terrorist group.
Belgian Foreign Minister Karel de Gucht has reportedly said that he will use his veto power in the EU Council to stop any attempt to remove the MKO from the EU’s terror list.
The EP’s Committee for Relations with Iran held a meeting on "the MKO and consequences of the judgment of the European Court of First Instance of 12 December’ to unfreeze the assets of the MKO. EU put the MKO on its terror list and ordered continued freezing of its funds in 2002.
"It is not a ruling on substance. It is a procedural decision stating that the EU Council did not provide the right to a hearing.
So it is a procedural shortcoming," German MEP Michael Gahler, who is also vice-president of the EP’s Foreign Relations Committee, told the meeting.
He said that the EU had sent a letter to the MKO stating the reasons why the group should be kept on the terror list.
"So it’s not correct to believe that there was any other reason.
The problem lies in a procedural error. The MKO will try again and appeal against a final decision, but I am quite sure that the Council will not go along with the ruling (of the court) at the end of the day," said Gahler.
A legal advisor to the EU Council also explained that the European court ruling had reference to procedural matters relating to the obligations to justify the reasons and give the MKO the right to a hearing, but it does not affect the common EU position to maintain the MKO in its terror list.
Josy Dubie, Belgian senator and a former war correspondent for a Belgian TV channel, condemned the MKO as a terrorist organization.
Dubie told the meeting that he covered the eight-year imposed war in the 1980s from both sides, that is, Iran and Iraq, and witnessed MKO fighters launching attacks against their own country (Iran).
"What I discovered was a sect, a group of men and women completely and irrationally devoted to their leader, Masoud Rajavi, which shocked me deeply. I had a feeling that I was among a group of fanatics who followed the orders of their leader blindly," he added.
Dubie, since 1999, has been a member of the Belgian Senate and vice-chair of its Foreign Relations committee. He said he has been recently visited by some MKO members.
"They target people they consider to be important and try to influence them. They try to convince these people that they are a democratic movement fighting for their country. But that is the opposite of what I saw," said the Belgian senator, who also clarified that he had no sympathy for the current regime of President Ahmadinejad.
"So when I received them in my office, I told them what I had seen and they did not contact me again because when they `realize it is not going to work they abandon you and look for somebody else,’" he said.
When Maryam Rajavi was invited by certain members of the Belgian Senate, they (MKO) claimed they had been officially invited to the senate.
"I deny this propaganda. The Belgian Senate itself refused to receive Maryam Rajavi," he said.
Some individual members of the Belgian Senate, including its President Anne-Marie Lizin, received Rajavi, who lives in Paris, last October. "A large number of senators protested, including myself," said Dubie.
Belgian Foreign Minister Karel De Gucht asked the senate about this matter and said he was very sore about this meeting and regretted that she had been invited by some senators.
De Gucht reportedly told the senate that the MKO had been responsible for hundreds of attacks in Iran and elsewhere, practiced torture and used emotional blackmail.
Dubie said he asked De Gucht in the senate about the court ruling on the MKO and whether the minister was in favor of removing the MKO from the list of terrorist groups.
According to Dubie, the Belgian foreign minister’s answer was:
"My answer to your question is very simple. I am in favor of keeping the PMOI on the European list and any decision to lift them or not to lift them requires the decision of all of the EU member states.
Belgium has a veto here and is prepared to use it."
"I can reassure you that the council has no intention of taking the MKO off the list," said the minister.
Mohammad Hossein Sobhani, a repentant MKO member and an author, related his long and bitter experience with the terror group in Iraq — how he was arrested and kept in solitary confinement for eight years in Asharf Camp and then in Abu Ghraib.
He asked the European parliamentarians not to use the "violations of human rights in Iran" as an excuse to support criminal terror groups such as the MKO.
Portugese MEP Paul Casaca, who organized the pro-MKO group 1Friends of a Free Iran’ in the EP, had objected that since no MKO member was invited to speak, Sobhani should also not be allowed to talk in the meeting.
German MEP Michael Gahler said the agenda should not be changed.
"A voting of MEPs took place and the agenda was approved as it was." The chair of the EP’s delegation from its Committee for Relations with Iran, Angelika Beer, said she decided not to invite the MKO "because the information provided to me told me that the MKO has not been deleted from the list of terrorist organizations and therefore I did not find it correct to invite them."
IRNA, February 28, 2007
BRUSSELS (Press TV) “ The European Union (EU) has sent a letter to the Mujahedin Khalq Organization (MKO) terrorist group in which it enumerated the reasons it has placed the MKO on its terrorist blacklist.
Similar letters will be sent to those people or organizations which have been enlisted as terrorist groups, sources in the EU, speaking on condition of anonymity, told an IRNA correspondent in Brussels.
The letter follows the decision by the European Court of Justice last December to remove the group from the terrorist blacklist, alleging that there was no transparency in the way the list was composed.
But the EU Council declared on 30 January that it will keep the group on the blacklist.
EU imposes anti-terrorist restrictions on those organizations or groups which are in the blacklist, including freezing the assets or blocking the financial and economic funding, with the list being updated on a yearly basis.
France and Britain which had previously blacklisted MKO, have not reacted to the efforts to unblock the group’s assets, EU’s official website EU Observer reported.
United States declared that the MKO as a terrorist group in 1997
IRNA, February 18, 2007
In a meeting with his Iranian counterpart, Iraqi interior minister Javad Bulani pointed to the terrorist records of the MKO and said that it’s presence in Iraq was illegal.
According to IRNA, Javad Bulani stressed that, "The continuation of MKO’s presence in Iraq can create, besides security problems, obstacles in the way of expanding ties with the Islamic Republic."
According to him, Iraqi government seeks the expulsion of the group and doesn’t like the ties between two sides be influenced by the presence of this group in Iraq.
"In the new Iraq, there’s no place for groups that can have negative impacts on relations with neighboring countries," he said.
"The two countries should be careful in preserving the security of their borders and to achieve that the two sides have already taken good steps," he added.
In the meeting, Hassan Kazemi Qomi, Iranian ambassador to Iraq invited his Iraqi counterpart to visit his country.
According to IRNA, quoting an Iraqi security officer, the conference of "Discussing the Role of Terrorist Groups in Destabilizing Operations against Iraqis" was held last weekend in Iraq.
IRNA – 2007/02/13
