The US still labels the anti-Iran Mujahedin-e Khalq Organization (MKO) as a terrorist group, says U.S. State Department Persian spokesman Alan Eyre.
When asked whether the United States considers MKO a viable opposition group, he said: “No. The U.S. considers the Mujahedin-e Khalq a terrorist organization. That’s it.”
Eyre, who is a fluent Persian speaker, was recently appointed by Obama as the first ever U.S. State Department Persian spokesman to reach out to Iranians.
However, “former U.S. four-star generals, intelligence chiefs, governors, and political heavyweights – who represent the full political spectrum – have been paid tens of thousands of dollars to speak in support of the MEK,” the Christian Science Monitor reported.
“Your speech agent calls, and says you get $20,000 to speak for 20 minutes. They will send a private jet, you get $25,000 more when you are done, and they will send a team to brief you on what to say,” the Monitor quoted a U.S. State Department official who is familiar with the speech contracts as saying.
Knowledgeable officials say the millions of dollars spent on the campaign have raised political pressure to remove the MKO from the Foreign Terrorist Organization (FTO) list to the highest levels since the group – whose record includes assassinations of US military advisers and attacks on US diplomats – was one of the first to be put there in 1997.
