Envoy says Mojahedin Khalq leaders must be extradited to Iran
Baghdad,Those Mojahedin Khalq Organization (MKO) leaders who masterminded terror operations inside Iran must be extradited to the country to stand trial, Iranian Ambassador to Baghdad Hassan Kazemi Qomi has said.
Iran has presented Iraqi officials a list of the MKO leaders who must be handed over to the country, he told the Mehr News Agency.
MKO members immigrated to Iraq in the 1980s and fought alongside Iraqi forces against Iran in the 1980-1988 Iran-Iraq war.
The ambassador also said, “The Iraqi government has been serious about expelling the terrorist organization members.”
Kazemi Qomi noted that Baghdad has officially informed the MKO members that they “can not choose” between staying or leaving the country, warning that they will be expelled from Iraq.
There are reports that 1,031 MKO members have so far decided to leave Iraq either by acquiring citizenship or by obtaining passport and so they will leave the country or those countries that have granted them citizenship will have to take them out of the Iraqi soil, he pointed out.
The MKO has claimed responsibility for carrying out numerous terror attacks against Iranian nationals and officials, and has also been accused of assisting former Iraqi dictator Saddam Hussein in the slaughter of thousands of Iraqi civilians in the 1990s.
http://www.mehrnews.com/en/NewsDetail.aspx?NewsID=834384
Leaders of a group of Iranian exiles in Iraq, who are resisting attempts to make them leave the country, traded accusations with the Iraqi government yesterday after relatives were prevented from visiting them. 
Leaders of the Iranian opposition group, which has been based at Camp Ashraf north of Baghdad for around two decades, said Iraqi security forces had stopped relatives from entering the camp to see family members.
“Iraqi forces stationed at the gates of Camp Ashraf on February 3 and during the past two days on February 9 and 10 prevented the entry of 15 relatives who were trying to see their loved ones in Ashraf,” the People’s Mujahideen of Iran (PMOI) said.
“(The Iraqi government) should not allow this inhumane treatment, which is desired by the Iranian regime, to take place in the name of the Iraqi government,” the group added, calling the actions of Iraqi security forces a breach of human rights.
Iraqi officials, who took over security at the camp from US forces this year, laid the blame on the PMOI.
“The Iraqi government received the families and facilitated their arrival and they were taken to the reception halls but the leaders at the camp refused to let the relatives see their families,” National security adviser Mowaffaq al-Rubaie said.
“(They) insisted that they should attend the meeting, without giving these families the freedom to privately see their relatives,” Rubaie added, also calling in his statement for international condemnation.
The statements from the opposite sides were impossible to reconcile.
The fate of Camp Ashraf’s 3,500 residents has been in the air since Iraq took it over from US forces this year.
Iraq’s Shia leaders are friendly with Tehran, and want it closed, but they say it will not be shut down by force.
Human rights groups say closing Ashraf and driving residents out against their will would violate international human rights law. They see it as a test of whether Iraq can meet its legal obligations as a member of the international community.
The government views the PMOI as terrorists, as do the US and Iran. But the group won an important victory last month when the European Union agreed to take it off its list of terrorist organisations.
Iraq Updates, February 14, 2009
http://www.iraqupdates.com/p_articles.php/article/45168/refid/RSS-latest-13-02-2009
David Lidington (Shadow Minister, Foreign Affairs; Aylesbury, Conservative) To ask the Secretary of State for Foreign and Commonwealth Affairs what the Government’s policy towards the People’s Mojahedin of Iran is in the light of 
the recent judgment by the European Court of First Instance.
Bill Rammell (Minister of State, Foreign & Commonwealth Office; Harlow, Labour) | Hansard source
On 26 January 2009, taking account of the judgment by the Court of First Instance on 4 December 2008, the General Affairs and External Relations Council adopted a list which did not include the MeK (Mojahedin-e-Khalq, also known as the People’s Mojaheddin of Iran).
However, we remain mindful of the MeK’s history as an organisation responsible for a number of serious terrorist attacks—it claimed responsibility for large numbers of violent attacks inside Iran for a number of years, including 96 in a three-month period in early 2001. We do not agree with its claim that it represents a credible democratic opposition in exile.
10 Feb 2009 : Column 1846W
Written answers | Hansard source
Foreign and Commonwealth Affairs
On Wednesday 11th of Feb 2009, a group of separated veteran members of the PMOI had a meeting with the authorities of Doctors Without
Borders/Médecins Sans Frontières (MSF) in PARIS and they submitted a letter regarding their concerns about psychological pressures and an imposed unlimited hunger strike upon the residents of ASHRAF garrison by PMOI leaders and operatives.
——
HONORABLE Doctors Without Borders
We, the signatories of this important letter, would like to notify you of a humane crisis which will likely happen in ASHRAF GARRISON in the near future. We are all victims of RAJAVI’s cult and recently were able to escape Iraq and come to the free world in European countries. As you know the PMOI has participated and co-operated in killing Iraqi people during the reign of SADDAM HUSSEIN, and as a result of that they have to leave Iraq in the coming two months. The PMOI’s leader MASSOUD RAJAVI in his recent speech has ordered the residents of ASHRAF garrison to be ready to go on an unlimited hunger strike to the point of death. MASSOUD RAJAVI’s intention in issuing such a brutal and violent order is to keep those desperate and hopeless residents of ASHRAF garrison trapped in ASHRAF for the rest of their lives and not to allow them to choose the free life of which they have been deprived for decades.
This unlimited hunger strike will lead to disaster for these people. The PMOI’s leaders and operatives will exert a great deal of psychological pressure upon the desperate residents and push them to go on unlimited hunger strike to death. We would like all humanitarian organizations to intervene to stop the PMOI’s leaders and operatives from imposing such a disaster and calamity upon the residents of ASHRAF garrison.
BEST REGARDS
PARIS – 11 FEB 2009
SIGNATORIES
1.MR. HASSAN PIRANSAR
2. MR. HAMID SIAHMANSOURI
3. MR. HAMED SARAFPOUR
4. MR. NADER NADERI
5. MR. MOHAMMAD BAZIARPOUR
6. MR. MOHAMMAD RAZAGHI
7. MR. MANSOUR NAZARI
Iranian Intelligence Minister: MKO too weak to create problems for Iran
Intelligence Minister underlining his affiliated ministry’s capability to monitor Mojaheddin Khalq Organization (MKO) activities inside or outside Iran, said that MKO is too weak to create any problem for the country.
In a ceremony here Monday evening, Gholam-Hossein Mohseni Ejeie told IRNA that both the intelligence and the foreign affairs ministries are monitoring MKO’s moves inside and outside of Iran’s international borders.
Regarding providing security for the presidential election period, the minister noted, "we are closely monitoring all events in a bid to prevent any move against country’s security.
Replying to a question about the latest situation of espionage and groups seeking to overthrow the Islamic system, the intelligence minister said that their dossiers are under survey at courts of justice.
ISRIA
Rabbani: Rajavi gang is begging foreign forces to save them
Iranian envoy to Qatar interviewed on ties, relations with US, Hamas
Doha Al-Sharq Online in Arabic on 10 February carries an interview with Iranian Ambassador to Qatar Muhammad Tahir Rabbani entitled: "Gas Forum is a Clear Example of the Qatari-Iranian Cooperation to Regulate the Energy Market in the World," conducted by Taha Husayn. The interview discusses several issues related to the economy of Iran, Iranian-US relations, and bilateral relations with Qatar
..Concerning the question on ignoring the role of the powers that participated in the revolution such as Mujahedin-e-Khalq , Rabbani says that the political struggle against the former regime was coloured by cultural and peaceful characteristics which differ from the other political trends which resolved to weapons, killing innocents, and assassinating the figures of the Islamic regime. Rabbani notes that "the terrorist hypocritical gang [REFERENCE to Mujahedin-e-Khalq] did not once, neither by words or deeds, show faith in the principles of the revolution. They never yielded to the will of the Iranian people." He adds that this "terrorist gang" participated with Saddam in his war against its own people and in the war against the Sunnah and Shi’i in Kurdistan and the southern Iraqi cities. He goes on to say that "this gang is now begging the foreign forces to save them and keep them alive." ..
Source: Al-Sharq website, Doha, in Arabic 10 Feb 09 – Translated by:BBC Monitoring Middle East
http://al-sharq.com
Berlin, Feb 8 – British Foreign Secretary David Miliband made clear his country’s position on the terrorist nature of the MKO grouplet had not changed, despite
the European Union’s controversial decision to remove the MKO from the terror list, IRNA reported.
Meeting with Majlis Speaker Ali Larijani on the sidelines of the 45th Munich Security Conference on Saturday, Miliband said, the position of the British government on the terrorist group, the People’s Mojahedin Organization, remains unchanged.
Miliband’s latest comments on the MKO came in the wake of earlier statements by Larijani who in his address to the Munich security confab on Friday voiced outrage over the West’s harboring of known terrorist groups, alluding to European countries providing safe haven to the MKO.
The MKO has been involved in the mass killings of thousands of innocent Iranians over the past 30 years.
Furthermore, the Israeli-backed MKO terror grouplet had also collaborated with the former Saddam regime, massacring tens of thousands of Iraqi Kurds and Shias.
Iraq: Joint committees formed to receive Ashraf Camp detainees from Multinational Forces to close the file
Baghdad Al-Iraqiyah Television in Arabic reports in its 1700 gmt newscast on 5 February on the preliminary results of the provincial council elections. The channel also reports on a meeting between the finance minister and the Japanese ambassador in Baghdad, a meeting between the defence minister and the UN representative in Iraq, a meeting of the committee in charge of the Mojahedin-e Khalq Organization’s presence in Iraq, and other political developments.
– "Finance Minister Engineer Baqir Jabr al-Zubaydi has hailed the Japanese Government’s support through giving Iraq a $3.5-billion loan, which will contribute to the entry of Japanese companies to Iraq to implement important projects in the fields of power, water, roads, and other reconstruction projects. This came during Al-Zubaydi’s meeting with Japanese Ambassador to Iraq Shoji Ogawa."
– "Defence Minister Abd-al-Qadir Muhammad Jasim received Ambassador Staffan de Mistura, representative of the UN secretary general, today. The two sides discussed the success achieved by the Iraqi security forces in securing the provincial council elections. The two sides also discussed the means of providing protection for the UN mission in Iraq after the withdrawal of the US troops."
– "The committee in charge of ending the presence of the terrorist Mojahedin-e Khalq Organization [MKO] in Iraq has held a periodic meeting under National Security Adviser Dr Muwaffaq al-Rubay’i and in the presence of the minister of human rights and the US ambassador to Iraq. Al-Rubay’i stressed the need to expel this organization from Iraq. He noted that the government’s decision to close the Ashraf Camp and expel those living in it is irreversible. He stressed the need for the international community’s cooperation with Iraq to resolve this issue through renewing asylum permits to the organization’s members who were issued such permits in the past by European and other countries. He called on these countries to study the possibility of giving asylum permits to other members of the organization."
– "Human Rights Minister Wijdan Salim has said that the file of detainees in Iraq will be closed within the next six months. She said that joint committees have been formed to receive the detainees from the Multinational Force to close this file."
– "The security forces in the Ninawa Governorate have released 151 detainees who were not convicted of involvement in terrorist actions in Iraq."
Al-Iraqiyah TV, Baghdad, in Arabic, 6 February 2009
Translated by: BBC Monitoring Middle East
An Iranian parliamentarian said Friday that the European Union (EU) delisted the terrorist Mojahedeen Khalq Organization (MKO) only to exploit it in line with its own interests. Member of Majlis National Security and Foreign Policy Commission Javad Jahangirzadeh said the members of the terrorist MKO will continue to serve their new European masters just the way they did for the toppled Saddam Hussein in Iraq for a long time.
He said the MKO members will certainly try to stir unrest and make anti-revolutionary moves inside Iran but to no avail.
He predicted that soon the EU will brand the grouplet as a freedom-fighter and try to increase its support for it.
The parliamentarian termed the EU move in removing the MKO from its list of terrorist organizations as an explicit gesture of animosity with Iran.
Noting that the Europeans, too, like Iranian nation, detested the terrorist grouplet, Jahangirzadeh said delisting MKO stands in strong contrast with Europe’s claims of supporting human rights.
He opined that the EU made the decision under influence of the US and Zionist lobbies.
Official: Baghdad soon to close MKO file
Iraqi National Security Advisor Muvafaq al-Rubai said here Friday that Iraqi government will in next few months close dossier of the terrorist Mujahideen Khalq Organization (MKO).
“The MKO is a terrorist group and a cancerous tumor in Iraq; The crimes and sins the group has committed are evident and well-documented. Several thousand Iraqi citizens have fallen victims of the terrorist organization and we have provable evidence, that we will submit them to Iraqi courts,” said al-Rubai in an exclusive interview with IRNA.
He said the MKO was stationed in Iraq by former Iraqi ruler Saddam Hussein and contrary to then regulations in Iraq, getting involved in suppression of Iraqi people’s Intifadha in 1991 and massacre of Kurds and Shiites.
He added that after formation of popular government of Iraq, the MKO has taken provocative moves against legal government of the country over recent years.
He went on to say that Iraqi courts have issued arrest warrants for 14 MKO members.
On removal of the MKO from Europe’s list of terrorist organizations, he said the MKO case is complicated and the European courts have thus far removed the outfit from the terrorism list and re-entered them into the list three times.
He said that the MKO will soon be put in the EU terrorist list.
“We have asked the EU to contribute to settlement of problem with the MKO and their exit from Iraq; we have recently discussed the issue with ambassadors of the countries and they have vowed to cooperate.”