Iraq plans to close down Camp Ashraf, which is the seat of Iranian militant group Mujahedin-e Khalq Organization (MeK), within two months, Press TV reported Jan. 23, citing Iraqi National Security Adviser Mowaffaq al-Rubaie. Al-Rubaie added that Iraq would allow MeK members to return to Iran or go to another country.
The Iraqi government this week accused an Iranian opposition group of planning a suicide attack against Iraqi troops, a possible prelude to decisive government action to close the group’s camp in Iraq and expel its members…Rubaie’s statement said a member of the organization had turned himself in to Iraqi security forces and told them that group leaders had instructed him to detonate explosives at the headquarters of the Iraqi security forces. The goal of the reported attack was to embarrass the Iraqi government, the statement said.
In a letter released in POAC’s ruling on November 2007, the UK Secretary of State is quoted saying “Mere cessation of terrorist acts do not amount to renunciation of terrorism. Without a clear and publicly available renunciation of terrorism by the PMOI, I am entitled to fear that terrorist activity that has been suspended for pragmatic reasons will be resumed in the future”….In the past there came the order for the members to self-immolate for Maryam. Now it is Camp Ashraf that is under threat of being closed down and they already have the orders what to do.
The Iraqi National Security Adviser Mowaffaq al-Rubaie is said to have arrived to Iran on Monday June 19 to seek boosting ties between Tehran-Baghdad and other regional countries and finalizing security victories in Iraq and the two countries agreements reached in Iraq. Upon his arrival, he is reported to have stated that “under no circumstances” can the Mojahedin Khalq Organization (MKO) members stay in Iraq.
Ms. McNaught has based her documented report on evidences made by Iraqi Kurds who were victims of MKO’s atrocities while their cooperation with regime of Saddam Hussein to suppress Kurdish uprisings. Although, as McNaught reports “MKO denies involvement in the repression”, she cites the testimonies of Kurds including a Kurd military commander of Pishmerga who lost many forces of his battalion that was attacked by MKO, and a Kurdish researcher assured her that he has handed many secret documents of Baath Intelligence Service to Human Rights Watch; the documents show that MKO helped the Ba’ath forces to occupy Kirkuk province to resist Kurdish forces.
An Iranian resistance group that has been living in exile in Iraq for decades is no longer a welcome guest in the country and may have no choice but to return to Iran, where some of its members fear they could be tortured and possibly executed as traitors…now that the Iraqi government wants the MeK to leave Iraq, the group’s designation as a terrorist organization is preventing other countries from offering its members a new home, and they fear they may have no choice but to return to Iran.
a partial transcript of the debate in the House of Lords on Monday on the terrorist listing of MKO..Asked By Lord Waddington:To ask Her Majesty’s Government what steps they will take to observe the latest judgment of the Court of First Instance of the European Communities concerning the People’s Mujaheddin Organisation of Iran
… The US announcement comes amid Iraqi government efforts to expel members of the terrorist group. Baghdad assumed control of the security of Camp Ashraf, the main MKO/PMOI/MEK military base in Iraq’s Diyala province, on January 1, 2009 …The Mujahedin Khalq Organization is blacklisted by many countries, including EU member states and the United States as a terrorist organization. It relocated to Camp Ashraf from Iran after the Islamic Revolution.
The U.S. State Department reaffirmed its designation of the anti-Iran Mojahedin-e Khalq Organization as a terrorist organization. The presence in Iraq of the MKO/PMOI/MEK has long been a source of friction between Washington and Baghdad, which intends to expel the terrorist group. The MKO/PMOI had filed a petition for revocation of its designation as a terrorist organization. But U.S. Secretary of State Condoleezza Rice wrote in a notice published Monday in the Federal Register that after reviewing the case she determined that the designation is still valid and appropriate.
U.S. Ambassador Ryan Crocker pointed out the Americans have designated the People’s Mujahedeen as a terrorist organization, and he understands the Iraqi government wants the group removed from its territory.But he said the Iraqis have promised to respect the human rights of the group’s members…”The Iraqi government’s position is that members of the Mujahedeen Khalq are unwanted here and they should leave Iraq and their camp should be closed, but Iraq will not make them leave forcibly,”Iraq’s deputy Foreign Minister told The Associated Press.