The support by the US and Europe for the anti-Iran terrorist group, the Mojahedin-e Khalq Organization (MKO), would damage their standing both in Iran and the world, an Iranian analyst said on Sunday.
Referring to the move by the European Parliament to demand Washington to strike the name of the MKO off the US list of terrorist groups, Reza Talayee Nik told FNA that the West is seeking to make an instrumental use of the MKO in confrontation with Iran, using the group as a pressure lever against the Islamic Republic.
“Placing the name of the Monafeqin (the Hypocrites, as MKO is referred to in Iran) in the list of terrorist groups or delisting it does not take place in accordance with a stable policy in Europe and the US,”Talayee Nik, a former member of the parliament’s National Security and Foreign Policy Commission said.
After removing the anti-Iranian terror group from their blacklist, the EU lawmakers are now urging US President Barack Obama to follow suit.
More than 100 members of the European Parliament have tried to persuade the US president to lift an American ban on the MKO.
Meantime, he pointed out that the western world has already failed in using the MKO as a pressure lever against the Islamic Republic, saying that the weakness and inability of the terrorist Mojahedin-e Khalq Organization is the reason for the West’s failure in using the group as a tool against Iran.
He further pointed out that the Europe is after maintaining its position in the competition with Russia and some other regional countries in providing an atmosphere for negotiations between Iran and the US.
The analyst mentioned that the EU aims to make a tactical use of the MKO in a bid to provide an advantage for the US in potentials talks with Iran,”but influence of the Zionist lobby on Europe has cause the EU’s failure in attaining desirable results”from such a move.
The MKO, whose main stronghold is in Iraq, is blacklisted by much of the international community, including the United States.
In the past, the MKO was on the European Union’s list of terrorist organizations subject to an EU-wide assets freeze. Yet, the MKO puppet leader, Maryam Rajavi, who has residency in France, regularly visited Brussels and despite the ban enjoyed full freedom in Europe.
The MKO is behind a slew of assassinations and bombings inside Iran, a number of EU parliamentarians said in a recent letter in which they slammed a British court decision to remove the MKO from the British terror list. The EU officials also added that the group has no public support within Iran because of their role in helping Saddam Hussein in the Iraqi imposed war on Iran (1980-1988).
Many of the MKO members abandoned the terrorist organization while most of those still remaining in the camp are said to be willing to quit but are under pressure and torture not to do so.
A May 2005 Human Rights Watch report accused the MKO of running prison camps in Iraq and committing human rights violations.
According to the Human Rights Watch report, the outlawed group puts defectors under torture and jail terms.
The group, founded in the 1960s, blended elements of Islamism and Stalinism and participated in the overthrow of the US-backed Shah of Iran in 1979. Ahead of the revolution, the MKO conducted attacks and assassinations against both Iranian and Western targets.
Leaders of the group have been fighting to shed its terrorist tag after a series of bloody anti-Western attacks in the 1970s, and nearly 30 years of violent struggle against the Islamic Republic of Iran.
In recent months, high-ranking MKO members have been lobbying governments around the world in the hope of acknowledgement as a legitimate opposition group.
The group started assassination of the citizens and officials after the revolution in a bid to take control of the newly established Islamic Republic. It killed several of Iran’s new leaders in the early years after the revolution, including the then President, Mohammad Ali Rajayee, Prime Minister, Mohammad Javad Bahonar and the Judiciary Chief, Mohammad Hossein Beheshti who were killed in bomb attacks by MKO members in 1981.
The group fled to Iraq in 1986, where it was protected by Saddam Hussein and where it helped the Iraqi dictator suppress Shiite and Kurd uprisings in the country.
The terrorist group joined Saddam’s army during the Iraqi imposed war on Iran (1980-1988) and helped Saddam and killed thousands of Iranian civilians and soldiers during the US-backed Iraqi imposed war on Iran.
Since the 2003 US invasion of Iraq, the group, which now adheres to a pro-free-market philosophy, has been strongly backed by the neo-conservatives in the United States, who also argue for the MKO to be taken off the US terror list.
The MKO has been in Iraq’s Diyala province since the 1980s, but the Iraqi government and parliament have in recent months stepped up efforts to expel the terrorist group from the country.