Seventy-one members of Mujahedin Khalq Organization have been relocated to Albania.
The resettlement is due to protracted efforts by the UN to move the around 3,000 members of the former rebel People’s Mujahedeen at Camp Liberty, on Baghdad’s outskirts, outside of Iraq.
The Video File is one of several reports published by Albanian Media on the resettlement of these 71 MEK members in Tirana Refugee Camp .
Seventy-one members of Mujahedin Khalq Organization have been relocated to Albania.
The resettlement is due to protracted efforts by the UN to move the around 3,000 members of the former rebel People’s Mujahedeen at Camp Liberty, on Baghdad’s outskirts, outside of Iraq.
The Video File is one of several reports published by Albanian Media on the resettlement of these 71 MEK members in Tirana Refugee Camp .
27 Camp Hurriya Residents Depart For Albania
Press Statement
Jen Psaki
Spokesperson, Office of the Spokesperson
Washington, DC
June 24, 2013
On June 19 and June 21, two groups of Camp Hurriya residents, 27 in total, were permanently relocated to Albania. This was the third of a series of movements planned under the terms of a generous humanitarian offer by the Government of Albania to accept 210 individuals from Camp Hurriya. The United States thanks Albania for its compassion in this humanitarian endeavor. So far, 71 individuals have relocated to Albania as part of this agreement, and we look forward to additional individuals relocating as soon as possible.
The United States strongly supports the work of the Office of the United Nations High Commissioner for Refugees (UNHCR), the United Nations Assistance Mission in Iraq (UNAMI), and the tireless efforts of the UN Special Representative of the Secretary General Martin Kobler to relocate remaining camp residents outside Iraq. We urge the Mujahedin-e Khalq leadership, and all responsible parties, to ensure full cooperation with the UNHCR relocation process so that future movements occur as expeditiously as possible.
The relocation of Camp Hurriya residents outside of Iraq is a humanitarian mission and vital to their safety and security. The United States renews its call on the Government of Iraq to help ensure the security of the camp in accordance with its December 25, 2011 Memorandum of Understanding with the United Nations. This is a matter of extreme urgency given ongoing threats to the camp. We further renew our call on the Government of Iraq to investigate and bring to justice the terrorists responsible for the June 15 rocket attack against the camp.
Seventy-one members of an exiled Iranian opposition group based at a camp near Baghdad have been relocated to Albania, the UN said Saturday, a week after the camp suffered deadly mortar attacks.
The resettlement is the latest in protracted efforts by the UN to move the around 3,000 members of the former rebel People’s Mujahedeen at Camp Liberty, on Baghdad’s outskirts, outside of Iraq.
“A total of 71 men and women now have safely arrived in Albania and have benefited from the government of Albania’s offer to accept 210 of the camp’s residents,” UN special envoy to Iraq Martin Kobler said in a statement.
Kobler said that Germany had also offered to accept around 100 residents, and added that the deadly attack on Camp Liberty a week ago had “once again shown how important it is to relocate the residents to third countries as quickly as possible.”
On June 15, two camp residents were killed by a series of mortar rounds which hit Camp Liberty, a former American military base that now houses the Iranian exiles, in the second such attack this year.
At Iraq’s insistence, the exiles were moved to Camp Liberty late last year from Camp Ashraf, near the Iranian border, where the People’s Mujahedeen set up base in the 1980s.
Ashraf was the base that now-executed dictator Saddam Hussein allowed the group to establish in Diyala province during Iraq’s eight-year war with Iran.
The People’s Mujahedeen was founded in the 1960s to oppose the shah of Iran, and after the 1979 Islamic revolution that ousted him it took up arms against Iran’s clerical rulers.
It says it has now laid down its weapons and is working to overthrow the Islamic regime in Iran by peaceful means.
Britain struck the group off its terror blacklist in June 2008, followed by the European Union as a whole in 2009 and the United States in September last year.
Another group of 14 Camp Liberty residents in Iraq have relocated to Albania on Tuesday, June 18, 2013.
This is the third group in a series of planned moves to relocate Camp Liberty [Temporary transit Location] residents to Albania.
The third group comprised 14 MKO members: 12 Men and 2 women.
Names of some of the transferred members are as follows:
Karim Qoraishi, a high ranking MKO member.
Mehdi Dolati, Hesam,Bahram,Sasan, Shirin Maadoumi.
By Mohammad Karami,Faryade Azadi
Press Statement
Jen Psaki
Spokesperson, Office of the Spokesperson
Washington, DC
June 3, 2013
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On May 31, thirty residents of Camp Hurriya departed Iraq for permanent relocation in Albania. The United States commends the Government of Albania’s generous offer to accept up to 210 former Camp Hurriya residents. This marks the second in a series of planned moves to relocate Camp Hurriya residents to Albania. Albania continues to be a strong partner of the United States in contributing to peace and stability in Iraq.
The United States also reiterates its call to the Mujahedin-e Khalq (MEK) to cooperate fully with the United Nations High Commission for Refugees (UNHCR) process to relocate Camp Hurriya residents outside of Iraq as expeditiously as possible. The permanent relocation of residents is essential to ensure the safety and security of residents, especially following the February 9 terrorist attack that took eight lives.
The MEK leadership has the responsibility to facilitate the full and immediate participation of residents in interview and counseling processes required by the UNHCR. Residents of Camp Hurriya are entitled to unimpeded and private access to UN human rights monitors. The MEK leadership has an obligation to ensure residents are able to engage openly and freely with UN human rights monitors, UNHCR personnel and UNAMI representatives.
The United States reaffirms its strong support for the work of UNHCR, the United Nations Assistance Mission for Iraq (UNAMI), and especially the tireless work of UNAMI Special Representative of the Secretary General Martin Kobler, to assist and resettle Camp Hurriya residents.
The safety and security of Camp Hurriya residents remain an utmost concern. Security requirements to protect residents must be fulfilled in accordance with the December 25, 2011 Memorandum of Understanding between the United Nations and the Government of Iraq.
The first exiles from an Iranian opposition group have moved to Albania from a camp near Baghdad as part of a relocation process, the United Nations said Thursday, a step toward defusing an explosive dispute left over from the Iran-Iraq war of the
1980s and the U.S.-led ousting of the regime of Saddam Hussein.
In a statement, the U.N. envoy in Iraq, Martin Kobler, said 14 members of the Mujahedeen-e-Khalq arrived in Albania late Wednesday, the first of 210 set to travel to new homes in Albania.
The MEK, or the People’s Mujahedeen of Iran, opposes Tehran’s clerical regime. It carried out assassinations and bombings in Iran until renouncing violence in 2001. Several thousand of its members were given sanctuary in Iraq by dictator Saddam Hussein, who was deposed in 2003.
Since then, the MEK refugees have been a stubborn, anachronistic thorn in the side of Iraq and the United States, even after the U.S. turned over responsibility for Camp Ashraf, housing the remnants of the militant group, to the Iraqi government in 2009.
The MEK fought alongside Saddam’s forces in the 1980s Iraq-Iran war, and its members fear persecution and death if they return to Iran.
The Shiite-led government in Baghdad that replaced Saddam’s regime is bolstering its ties with Iran. It considers the MEK a terrorist group and wants its members out of the country.
The MEK exiles have come under fire from armed Iraqis who demand their expulsion. In one incident, seven people were killed in a rocket attack on the MEK camp in February. Later, the head of a Shiite militant group threatened to carry out more attacks on the camp if the MEK members refused to leave.
Last year about 3,000 MEK exiles were moved from their decades-long enclave in northeastern Iraq to a refugee camp outside Baghdad at a former U.S. military base, part of an effort to ensure their peaceful departure from Iraq. However, while Albania is taking in a small group, it remains unclear where the rest of the MEK members might go, leaving a clear potential for further violence.
The U.S. government praised Albania for accepting to host the MEK members, urging the Iranian opposition group to cooperate fully with the relocation process.
"The relocation of Camp Hurriya residents outside of Iraq is vital to their safety and security. It is the responsibility of the MEK leadership to facilitate for the residents of Camp Hurriya free and unfettered access to U.N. human rights monitors," said a statement by the U.S. State Department.
Albanian Interior Minister Flamur Noka pledged to quickly complete arrangements to resettle the 14. He told The Associated Press that they will get the refugee status immediately and then receive residence permits and proper documentation.
"They will be treated like every other Albanian citizen," he said, though "for the moment they will have the status of the refugee," meaning they will not be free to travel outside Tirana, the capital.
Then-U.S. Secretary of State Hillary Clinton negotiated the agreement with Albania and the U.N. to take in the 210 MEK exiles late last year.
The U.S. took the MEK off its list of terror groups in September 2012, raising a stiff protest from Iran, charging that the U.S. move was "a violation of America’s legal and international obligations" that could threaten U.S. interests.
"There is much evidence of the group being involved in terrorist activities. Delisting it shows America’s double standard policy on terrorism," Iran state TV said then. The U.S. distinguishes between "good and bad terrorists" and the MEK are now "good terrorists because the U.S. is using them against Iran," the TV report said.
The MEK spent large sums of money in years of lobbying for removal from the U.S. terror list, holding rallies in European capitals and elsewhere.
On Thursday, Kobler described the transfer of the first group as "an encouraging first step in the relocation of the group of 210 residents the Albanian government has agreed to receive."
Ortenc Balla, a U.N. official in Tirana, said the 14 were in an asylum-seekers center. "The Albanian government has undertaken all the responsibilities, including their security," he told the AP.
Phone calls to the Iraqi government and MEK officials went answered.
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Associated Press writers Llazar Semini in Tirana, Albania and Bradley Klapper in Washington contributed.
The Albanian government said on Saturday the Balkan country was ready to take in 210 members of an Iranian opposition group who currently live at a former US military base in Iraq.
"The government is ready to accommodate in Albania, for humanitarian reasons, 210 members of the People’s Mujahedeen of Iran", or the Mujahedeen-e-Khalq (MEK), Prime Minister Sali Berisha said in a statement.
Albania will take in the Iranians, who currently live at Camp Liberty near Baghdad, following demands of both the US authorities and the United Nations, he said.
The UN envoy in Iraq Martin Kobler and US Deputy Assistant Secretary of State Barbara Leaf on Saturday held talks with the Albanian authorities over security measures and housing conditions for the opponents of the Tehran regime, which would be in line with international law.
A February mortar and rocket attack on Camp Liberty, housing about 3,000 members of the MEK, killed seven people, according to the group.
The MEK was founded in the 1960s to oppose the shah of Iran, and after the 1979 Islamic revolution that ousted him the group took up arms against Iran’s clerical rulers.
It says it has now laid down its arms and is working to overthrow the Islamic regime in Tehran by peaceful means.
Britain struck the group off its terror list in June 2008, followed by the European Union in 2009 and the United States in September 2012.
