An Iranian diplomat has slammed the US for backing the anti-Iran Mujahedin-e Khalq Organization (MKO), saying the terrorist group has bribed American politicians into showing public support for it.
In a column p
ublished on the USA Today daily on Thursday, Counselor and Head of Press Office for the Permanent Mission of Iran to the UN Hamid Babaei, criticized Washington for removing the MKO from the US State Department’s list of terrorist organizations in 2012.
The Iranian official also highlighted the crimes perpetrated by the MKO members against the Iranian and Iraqi nations and said the support of some American political figures for the terrorists as an Iranian “opposition group” shows “their cluelessness about Iran.”
“Washington lobbyists and former American politicians and officials have accepted millions of dollars from the group…in return for which they have publicly supported” them, wrote Babaei.
He further censured the Western states for sheltering the terrorists instead of bringing them to justice for their crimes.
“It remains unclear why an organization with such a violent history would be allowed so freely to operate in many Western countries,” said Babaei, stressing that the “dual nature of standards against terrorism is likely the greatest threat being faced by international efforts to stop terrorism today.”
The MKO fled Iran in 1986 for Iraq, where it received the backing of Iraq’s executed dictator Saddam Hussein and set up a camp near the Iranian border. The terrorist group also sided with Saddam during Iraq’s eight-year war on the Islamic Republic in 1980-1988.
The group is listed as a terrorist organization by much of the international community and is notorious for committing numerous terrorist acts against Iranians and Iraqis.
The European Union also removed the MKO from its list of terrorist organizations in 2009 after the group filed a petition against the blacklisting in 2008.
