The British government has dismissed a call from a leading supporter of the so-called National Council of Resistance (NCRI) to provide backing to deproscribe the anti-Iran Mujahedin-e-Khalq as a terrorist group.
"We have no such plans. The Mojahedin-e Khalq (MKO) is proscribed in the UK under the Terrorism Act 2000," Foreign Office Minister Kim Howells said in a written parliamentary reply, published Tuesday.
"It has a long history of involvement in terrorism in Iran and elsewhere and is, by its own admission, responsible for violent attacks that have resulted in many deaths," Howells told MPs.
The minister was asked by Conservative MP Brian Binley if the UK government would make representations to both the US and the EU to remove the MKO from its list of debarred organizations.
But Howells said that the MKO is listed in the US as a foreign terrorist organization and it is on the EU’s asset freeze list and that his government "welcomes this."
Last month, Labour MP David Amess revealed that he accompanied Binley on paid trip to the UN General Assembly last month to rally support for the NCRI as a front group for the MKO.
London, Nov 1