“I didn’t want to be on a panel with the MEK. I was shocked they invited the MEK. What the MEK has to do with the ISIL, I don’t have a clue,” Ford told FP. “I told the committee to put me on a panel without the MEK or I wouldn’t appear,” the former envoy stressed.
The enthusiasm of some hawks in Congress for the Mujaideen-e Khalq (MEK) has started to create a bit of a backlash. The Terrorism, Nonproliferation, and Trade Subcommittee of the House Foreign Affairs Committee invited the cult’s leader, Maryam Rajavi, to testify remotely as part of a panel on ISIS. That prompted one former State Department official to withdraw from the meeting entirely…
In an email to Foreign Policy, Benjamin noted that the MEK’s “exclusive focus” of concern has for decades been Iran. “So one has to wonder what the purpose of Rajavi’s presence on this panel is,” said Benjamin, who is now director of an international studies program at Dartmouth University.
He is the second witness to balk at sharing the spotlight with Rajavi. On Monday, former State Department counterterrorism director Daniel Benjamin pulled out of the hearing, which is scheduled for Wednesday. “I didn’t want to be on a panel with the MEK aka MKO/PMOI. I was shocked they invited ,,,
Former ambassador to Syria Robert Ford and ex-counterterrorism coordinator Daniel Benjamin told Al-Monitor that they did not want to give a platform to the Mujahedeen-e-Khalq (MEK)/MKO/PMOI, a group that the United States considered a terrorist organization until three years ago. Ford said he would not testify at the same time as Maryam Rajavi, while Benjamin has pulled out altogether from Wednesday’s terrorism subcommittee hearing on the self-proclaimed Islamic State
Apparently when Iraj Mesdaghi issued his first report about the unrealistic policies of the NCRI and directly questioned the cult leader Massoud Rajavi, and consequently Abdol Karim Qasim and Mohammad Reza Rouhani, two prominent members of the NCR, resigned …
The fifteen individuals have been accepted as refugees by the United States and were flown to Los Angeles on 21 March. This group is part of a quota of 80 from the 3,000+ MEK/MKO/PMOI members which the US agreed to accept from the temporary transit camp Liberty (aka Hurriyeh) in Iraq. The government of Iraq and the United Nations …
Mr. Rahmani who was forced to stay with the group for 27 years, transferred to Albania from Temporary Transit Location, Iraq.In Tirana far from the Cult boundaries and strict manipulation practices, Mr. Rahmani managed to release himself from the cult.Now, he is with his family after about a quarter of a century. When he left his family, his son was a 3 year old child. ..
But let’s remember: The MEK and the United States have fundamentally different interests. The MEK highlights Iran’s nuclear programs — real, imagined, and downright fabricated — as a way to build support for regime change in Tehran. Hemming in the Iranian nuclear program through diplomacy removes one of the MEK’s most effective talking points in favor of bombing Iran. They won’t go down without a fight.
Iran’s permanent UN mission in New York dismissed as”baseless”and”fake”the recent claim that was raised by the terrorist Mojahedin-e Khalq Organization (MKO, also known as MEK, NCRI and PMOI) and appeared on a US daily…