The anti-Iran terrorist Mojahedin-e Khalq Organization (MKO also known as the MEK, NCR and PMOI) announced that it will not allow the remaining residents of its Camp Ashraf to be transferred to Camp Liberty..This inappropriate demand is an affront to Iraq’s sovereignty and in contrast to UN Secretary-General’s statement released on Thursday in which Ban Ki Moon reiterated that”the Government of Iraq bears the primary responsibility..
The UN High Commissioner for Refugees (UNHCR) will immediately start the process of verification and refugee status determinations, a key step in preparing the submissions of eligible candidates for resettlement in third countries.Today’s relocation is in line with the memorandum of understanding signed in December by the UN and the Iraqi Government to resolve the situation facing the residents of Camp New Iraq (formerly Camp Ashraf)..
Given the blatant violation of international law and human rights that the terrorist acts carried out by the MKO aka MEK/PMOI and Mossad pose for people of Iran as now admitted by the US officials, we urge all citizens of the US and the EU to address through their parliamentary representatives the terrorist activities of Mossad and MKO and the freedom given to the MKO to operate in the US and the EU.
The United States encourages Ashraf residents to continue their cooperation with Iraqi authorities and the UN Assistance Mission for Iraq (UNAMI) as they work to complete the relocation to Hurriya, she said. The United States will continue to coordinate with UNAMI and the Iraqi government to follow the relocation process, she said. In addition to around-the-clock UN human rights monitoring, the U.S. will visit the temporary transit facility at Hurriya regularly and frequently,U.S. State Department spokeswoman Victoria Nuland said on Saturday.
EU High Representative Catherine Ashton Saturday”very much welcomed”the news from Iraq that the first group of residents from Camp Ashraf has moved in a voluntary, orderly and peaceful manner to Camp Hurriya.”I congratulate the United Nations – in particular the Secretary General’s Special Representative Martin Kobler – for many weeks of sustained efforts to facilitate this critical first step towards a peaceful solution..
It is clear that for Camp Ashraf residents there is no future for them inside Iraq. It’s not easy for them to leave their place but I’m convinced this is the only peaceful alternative,”U.N. special envoy to Iraq Martin Kobler said shortly after the Ashraf residents arrived at a”transit site”on a vast former U.S. military base in Baghdad. From this new camp, a cluster of prefabricated houses in Camp Liberty, near Baghdad airport, they are due to make arrangements to settle outside Iraq…
Martin Kobler, the U.N. secretary general’s special representative and head of the U.N. Assistance Mission for Iraq (UNAMI), was at the temporary site to welcome the new arrivals.“This is the first step towards a better future outside Iraq,” he said. “I look forward to their continued cooperation with the Iraqi authorities to complete the relocation without delay.”He also praised the Iraqi for having ensured the “safe and secure relocation” ..
Several hundred Iranian exiles were traveling to a UN-approved site near Baghdad on Saturday after leaving Camp Ashraf, where Iranian opposition members have been based for decades.The move is part of a December 25 deal between the UN and Iraq..Iraq had previously aimed to close Camp Ashraf in Diyala province..But Iraqi premier Nuri al-Maliki said on December 21 that his government had agreed to extend the deadline to April
The plan now agreed to by the Iraqi government should be given a chance to work. As a first step, it calls for the camp residents to voluntarily relocate to a transit site at the Baghdad airport. In contrast to Camp Ashraf, this site would be monitored around the clock by observers from the United Nations. There, the residents would be interviewed by the U.N. refugee agency, the UNHCR, to determine their eligibility for refugee status..
the Mujahedeen-e Khalq (MEK), an exiled Iranian opposition group designated a “foreign terrorist organization” by the State Department, conducted a series of assassinations of Iranian nuclear scientists. Former CIA official and visiting Georgetown professor Paul Pillar, citing the U.S. government’s definition of terrorism, observed that “with or without confirmation of details of this story, the assassinations are terrorism.” But numerous right-wing pundits ..