Following a raid by the Iraqi military on the headquarters of the terrorist group the People’s Mujahedin of Iran, Iraq’s Foreign Minister Hoshyar Zebari has suggested that “countries who care about the fate and human rights of this group’s action … should welcome them and they should resettle them in their countries.”
Zebari made the remarks in an interview with Radio Free Europe/Radio Liberty, just days after the Iraqi military launched a raid on Camp Ashraf, 60 kilometers North of the Iraqi capital Baghdad. The camp is home to the People’s Mujahedin of Iran (PMOI), a terrorist organisation much despised by the Iranian people. The United Nations says 34 people were killed during the raid on the camp at which some 3,500 members of the death cult are stationed.
Iraq
Zebari told RFE/RL :“The Iraqi Constitution prohibits the presence of mujahedin or any other militia groups from neighboring countries, whether it’s the PKK [Kurdistan Workers’ Party], whether it’s the PJAK [Party for a Free Life in Kurdistan], or whoever to have presence on Iraqi territory and to launch attacks against our neighbors. Constitutionally, this is not allowed and the mujahedin or the MEK member [Mujahedin Khalq] of the Ashraf camp have to respect Iraqi law.”
“Iraq has a commitment not to extradite any of its members to Iran. Iraq has a commitment also to observe international humanitarian law and to have access by international organisations to them, like the United Nation missions, ICRC, and so on.”
Zebari continue: “No country in the world will tolerate any organisation to undermine its sovereignty, to defy its authority, and to act as if this is a liberated territory or a state within a state. So they have to abide by Iraqi rules and regulations, and we have called on European countries and others to resettle these peoples in their countries, for them to go on and continue their struggle. In Iraq, their presence is unacceptable.”
The Iraqi Foreign Minister said that his government’s decision to expel the group and set a deadline of the end of the year was “an Iraqi decision” while noting that the group was even “branded in the United States as a terrorist group, by the Department of State.”
“Those countries who care about the fate and human rights of this group’s action, should welcome them and they should resettle them in their countries. My government has requested such a thing from European countries and from other countries, to resettle members of the Ashraf camp in their countries.”
When asked where he saw the group’s members going, Zebari responded, “Wherever. Any country — in the northern countries, in Australia, in New Zealand, Canada, the United States, wherever.”
The PMOI is known by a number of different names including Mojahedin-e-Khalq Organization (MEK) or (MKO), The National Liberation Army of Iran (the group’s armed wing) and the National Council of Resistance of Iran, a front group for the PMOI.
In the 80s, the group joined forces with the invading of Saddam Hussein and developed an intimate relationship with the Iraqi dictator at a time when Iranians were struggling to liberate the occupied Iranian territories. Due to the MKO’s traitorous actions and its role in the massacre of Iraqi Kurds and Marsh Arabs, it has no political base inside Iran and no genuine support or credibility among ordinary Iranians.
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