Earlier this week the United States welcomed renewed efforts to relocate the residents of Camp Ashraf which has housed members of an exiled Iranian opposition group[MKO/MEK/PMOI] for years. State Department spokeswoman Victoria Nuland noted the”safe arrival”last week of a sixth convoy of about 400 residents of Camp Ashraf to Camp Hurriya, ..
Mujahedeen leaders this month said 400 Ashraf residents would move to the former U.S. base, known as Camp Liberty. Bakoos, who is overseeing the Ashraf resettlement for Prime Minister Nouri al-Maliki, said the residents started pushing and shoving Iraqi forces as a way to slow the move. “We needed to search some of them by hand, but they refused,” Bakoos said…
The government of Iraq, along with Iranian exiles [MKO/MEK/PMOI], is called on to honor the spirit of a resettlement agreement, a U.S. State Department official said.Baghdad and the United Nations signed a memorandum of understanding in December outlining the voluntary relocation of members of the People’s Mujahedin of Iran from their Camp Ashraf enclave …
All sides involved in the humanitarian issue of relocating the members of Mojahedin Khalq Organization MKO/MEK/PMOI from their military base, Camp Ashraf, to a transit facility near Baghdad seem to have been locked in a protracted battle over the plan…
The United States is concerned by the Government of Iraq’s reference on July 31 to the possible closure of Camp Ashraf by involuntary relocation of its residents…We also call on the Ashraf leadership to immediately resume cooperation with the relocation .. it is clear that the quality of life at Hurriya exceeds accepted humanitarian standards.
The MKO terrorist, identified as Shamsollah Mohammadi, killed himself at the camp, situated about 120 kilometers (74 miles) west of the border with Iran, on July 28…Excessive mental pressures, psychological problems and a bleak future outlook for the group are said to have driven MKO/MEK/PMOI members in Iraq to despair, prompting some of them to commit suicide…
a former ringleader of the MKO said that over 50 people in Ashraf and Liberty Camps in Iraq have died of cancer, stroke or other incurable diseases during the last 2 years, adding that the MKO aka MEK/PMOI leaders do not allow patients to leave the camps to receive treatment in Iraq’s hospitals.
The United States supports the United Nations Assistance Mission for Iraq’s (UNAMI) “Roadmap,” which suggests remaining steps for the closure of Camp Ashraf and builds upon the work that has produced the safe relocation of almost two-thirds of the residents from Ashraf to Camp Hurriya. We urge the leadership of Camp Ashraf and the Government of Iraq to cooperate in moving forward with this plan, ..
The UN said it has a”roadmap”to resolve a dispute between Iraq and a group of Iranian exiles, but a senior official warned that Baghdad would act if there was no resolution to the row.About 1,200 members of the People’s Mujahedeen of Iran, opposed to the regime in Tehran, have refused to move from their camp north of the Iraqi capital despite a UN-brokered accord with the government