A number of Iranian MPs have criticized the European Union’s request that the United States remove the Mojahedin Khalq Organization from its list of terrorist groups.
On Thursday, the European Parliament issued a declaration urging Washington to remove the MKO from its list of foreign terrorist organizations.
The European Union took the MKO off its black list in 2009.
The MKO is a terrorist group
Talking to reporters on Saturday, MP Kazem Jalali said, “The MKO is a terrorist organization and the Europeans themselves acknowledge this.”
“The MKO itself has admitted that it has killed 4800 people, including ordinary people as well as officials of the Islamic Republic. This organization has planted bombs in several areas. If this group is not a terrorist one, what else can it be labeled as?”
“The West is facing a paradox about the issue of terrorism and the reason is that certain Western countries define everything according to their national interests,” stated Jalali, who is also the rapporteur of the Majlis National Security and Foreign Policy Committee.
West using MKO as a tool
Majlis Foreign Policy Committee Chairman Heshmatollah Falahatpisheh told the Mehr News Agency on Saturday that Europe and the U.S. are using the MKO as a tool.
But such measures will improve Iran’s ability to negotiate in the international arena since they illustrate the double standards the United States and Europe apply toward terrorism, he added.
West is main source of terrorism
MP Karim Quddusi told MNA that the EU’s move shows that the West is the main source of terrorism.
MP Hamid-Reza Taraqqi of the Islamic Coalition Party called on the Iranian government to make serious efforts to convince the Iraqi government to extradite the MKO members before the group is delisted, MNA reported on Saturday.
The MKO, listed as a terrorist organization by much of the international community, began a campaign of assassinations and bombings in Iran shortly after the victory of the Islamic Revolution in 1979.
The group moved to Iraq in the early 1980s and fought Iran from there until the United States invaded the country in March 2003