Following the EU call for the US to remove the MKO from its terror list, an Iranian lawmaker says the West is taking political advantage of the terrorist group.
The European Parliament issued a declaration on Thursday, urging Washington to remove the Mujahedin-e Khalq Organization from its list of Foreign Terrorist Organizations.
The European Union took the MKO off its blacklist in 2009.
"The people of the world have been once again faced with Europe’s double standards on terrorism and have realized the reality of the West’s approach towards terrorism," member of the Majlis National Security and Foreign Policy Commission Heshmatollah Falahatpisheh said on Saturday.
The MKO has no place among the Iranian people, who will never forget the terrorist group’s cooperation with former Iraqi dictator Saddam Hussein, the Iranian lawmaker added.
"The US and the European Union seek to use the tools that increase pressure on the Islamic Republic… but they do not know that such pressure has a reverse effect and the country’s establishment will become more united," Mehr News Agency quoted Falahatpisheh as saying.
Falahatpisheh said such actions increased Iran’s bargaining capability in the international arena, adding that removing the MKO from the list of global terrorist organizations reveals the double standards adopted by the US and EU to the world.
The MKO terrorist group, which has been on the US terror list since 1997, filed a petition against the blacklisting in 2008.
The administration of former US president George W. Bush rejected the request in its final days in 2009, after examining material submitted by the group and US intelligence agencies, including classified information.
In July, a US federal appeals court ordered the US State Department to reconsider its decision.
The State Department said it would study the decision but added that the US government continues to view the group as a terrorist organization.
The MKO is listed as a terrorist organization by much of the international community and is responsible for numerous acts of terror and violence against Iranian civilians and government officials.
The organization is also known to have cooperated with Iraq’s former dictator Saddam Hussein in suppressing the 1991 uprisings in southern Iraq and the massacre of Iraqi Kurds.
