TEHRAN (Xinhua) — Iran’s Parliament Speaker Ali Larijani said Tuesday that the US administration has taken double-standard stance on terrorism, the semi-official Fars news agency reported.
Referring to the United States’ approach to the anti-Iran "terror group," the Mojahedeen Khalq Organization (MKO), Larijani said that "it was obvious to us that the US (on one hand) has been using the group as a tool… and (on the other hand) Americans said that they have nothing to do with MKO because it is a terrorist organization."
"A recent report about the US policy on the MKO, released by a research center affiliated to the US Defense Ministry, declared that Washington has not treated the group as a terrorist organization… it is a political scandal for Washington," Larijani was quoted as saying.
The Mojahedeen, a self-claimed Marxist and Islamic movement, was founded in 1965 in opposition to the shah of Iran and has subsequently fought to oust the Islamic regime which took power in the 1979 revolution.
In 1980s, when former Iraqi dictator Saddam Hussein was at war with Iran, the group set up Camp Ashraf in northeast Iraqi town of Khalis about 120 kilometers west of the Iranian border and 60 kilometers north of Baghdad as a base to operate against the Tehran government.
Earlier this year, Iraqi National Security Adviser Muwafaq Al-Rubaie underlined his country’s decisiveness to implement an earlier decision for closing the headquarters of the anti-Iran terrorist group in Diyala Province.
Iranian government says the MKO is "an organized group which has never denied using weapons and arms." It is blacklisted as a terrorist organization by the United States.