Members of the anti-Iran terrorist Mojahedin-e Khalq Organization (MKO) should be expelled from Iraq’s soil, an Iraqi lawmaker said.
"The MKO members should leave Iraq’s soil. That is the least aspiration of the Iraqi nation," member of the Iraqi parliament Neda al-Sudani told Fars News Agency.
"Their presence is against our will. The nation of Iraq does not want them (MKO) and asks for their expulsion," she noted.
Stating that the MKO’s presence in Iraq is a sensitive issue for Iran, she added, "We do not want their presence to be extended any further."
Earlier in August, Iraqi Prime Minister Nouri al-Maliki stressed his government’s resolve to expel MKO members from his country.
"We have always had a clear stance on all terrorist groups. They have to leave the Iraqi soil. The government has underlined this stance since the beginning," Maliki told FNA at the time.
Iraqi security forces took control of the training base of the MKO at Camp Ashraf – about 60km (37 miles) north of Baghdad – last month and detained dozens of the members of the terrorist group.
Asked about the possibility of the return to power by Iraq’s former Baath party, al-Sudani told FNA that based on Iraq’s laws the Baath party can neither have a share in the government nor nominate anyone for elections.
A leading US daily, the Washington Post, cited Turkish and American officials as well as an insurgent leader as saying that the US officials engaged in negotiations with Iraqi insurgent groups in two meetings this spring that culminated in an agreement to organize talks intended to bring the groups into Iraq’s political life.
