The likely successful nuclear negotiations between Iran and the West have pushed the Mujahedin Khalq Organization (the MKO) to face more challenges in order to impede a normalized Iran-West relationship. 
The group’s heavy scale well-funded lobbying campaign to derail diplomacy with Iran has come up with new dimensions.
For years, the MKO’s propaganda had focused on the Iranian nuclear program, spreading misinformation about it but once the nuclear talks started in Geneva, the group found itself empty handed. While the Cult of Rajavi has always claimed to be the alternative to the Iranian Government, the ongoing diplomacy process between Iran and the West has wiped out its slightest hope for achieving power in Iran. Furthermore, today the MKO is more concerned for its own survival, let alone governing Iran –Where it hardly ever enjoys public support.
That’s why the MKO is awfully nervous about the recent visits to Iran by the European politicians. For instance, the group, denounced a trip last month to Tehran by Austrian Foreign Minister Sebastian Kurz. The denunciation came two weeks after the so-called Friends of Free Iran (FoFi), an informal network of members of the European Parliament (MEPs) closely allied to the NCRI, organized a conference calling for regime change in Iran and lauding the NCRI-MEK as the democratic alternative, according to Edar Mamedov who is a political adviser for the social-democrats in the Foreign Affairs Committee of the European Parliament (EP) and is in charge of the delegation for inter-parliamentary relations between the EP and Iran. [1]
After the election of Rouhani as the Iranian president, the significant progress in the Nuclear negotiations pushed the MKO propaganda to actively run the new agenda of Human Rights. As an official who witnesses the MKO’s lobbying efforts in the European Parliament, Mamedov suggests, “So, the MEK, which detests the notion of rapprochement between Iran and the West, has shifted gears and chosen human rights as its casus belli against the Iranian regime.”[2]
Although Mamedov does not disregard “the capacity of the MEK to poison the present atmosphere of European-Iranian relations”, he clarifies, “The good news is that MEK lobbying efforts against diplomacy with Iran are unlikely to succeed.” [3]
“Even with the extravagant funds the MEK has spent on endorsements by political elites, the group’s prominence in the EU is confined only to one part of the EP,” writes Mamedov.” The foreign policy decision-making bodies of the EU — the Council of the EU and the External Action Service (EEAS) — do not consider the MEK a serious alternative to the current government in Tehran, as it has virtually no support among the Iranian population. ” [4]
Among the few European parliament members who favor Maryam Rajavi and her cult-like organization, Alejo Vidal-Quadras the Spanish EU Parliament member is “the key man in Spanish political relations with the Iranian People’s Mujahedeen”, according to Elsa S. Vejo of the Spanish News Website Esterella Digital. [] The Spanish journalist criticizes their 13-years working politician for the “astonishing” cause of the MKO. According to official versions, the MEK was “voluntarily disarmed”.” According to the unofficial version, the CIA and the Israeli Mossad is training the Mojahedin for their own benefit,” He writes. “So much so, that in January 2012, Ilan Mizrahi, former head of the secret Israeli intelligence service, disclosed the involvement of the Mojahedin in the “secret war” against Iran that had already cost the lives of four Iranian nuclear scientists.” [5]
In addition, the support for the group in the US Congress is not so noteworthy. There are also a few retired American officials who embrace the MKO in response to large amounts of donation the group pays them. Rudy Guiliani former New York mayor is one of the well-paid ardent sponsors of the group whose “warm embrace of the MEK terrorist organization is shocking and deplorable.”
Hamid Babaei counselor and head of Press Office for the Permanent Mission of the Islamic Republic of Iran to the United Nations in New York wrote a response to an op-ed by Rudolph Giuliani , “Team Obama keeps miscalculating Iran — ‘change’ under Rouhani is a mirage” that appeared in Fox News Opinion. Babaei states, ” Journalists and think tanks across the world have sounded the alarm regarding the “cult-like” practices of the MEK, such as forcing members to give up their children in order to dedicate more time to the cause, and their decades long reign of terror and brutality has been well established by many including the U.S. Department of State when it designated it as terrorist organization in 1997 while describing it as a “repressive cult despised by most Iranians and Iraqis.” Babaei also refers to the 2009 report by the Rand Corp. in which the authors denounce the MKO for its “cultic practices and its deceptive recruitment and public relations strategies”.[6]
The MKO’s large-scale effort to gain the West’s support does not seem to be efficient. “The dominant EU line now clearly favors diplomacy with Iran, which will, hopefully, lead to a final deal over Tehran’s controversial nuclear program,” suggests Mamedov.” The more the chances of success for diplomacy increase, the more irrelevant the MEK will become.” [7]
By Mazda Parsi
Sources:
[] Mamedov, Eldar, The MEK’s Influence in EU Politics Matters, Loblog FP, May 10, 2014
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[5] S. Vejo, Elsa , SPAINISH POLITICIAN’S DANGEROUS RELATION, Esterella Digital, May 6, 2014 (Translated by Iran Interlink)
[6] Babaei, Hamid, Embrace of Mojahedin Khalq shocking, deplorable, Fox News, May 7, 2014
[7] Mamedov, Eldar, The MEK’s Influence in EU Politics Matters, Loblog FP, May 10, 2014
