The Iraqi government is trying to send members of terrorist Mujahideen Khalq 
Organization (MKO) to Saudi Arabian border, an informed source said on Monday.
The source, speaking on condition of anonymity told IRNA that Iraq is going to send MKO members, also known as Munafiqin (hypocrites), from Ashraf camp to Nugrat Al-Salman region on Saudi Arabian border.
Located on Iraq’s border with Saudi Arabia, Nugrat Al-Salman prison was once the horrendous house to anti-Saddam political dissidents.
Iran has been the first and main supporter of the Iraqi government after the downfall of Saddam Hussein’s regime, Iraqi Deputy Foreign Minister Labid Abawi
said on Saturday.
"We have excellent relations with Iran and Iran has always supported us ever since the downfall of Saddam and the two sides have signed dozens of Memoranda of Understanding," Abawi told FNA.
He further noted the increase in the visits to Iran by Iraqi officials, and reiterated, "Our trip with Mr. Jalal Talabani to Tehran was aimed at deepening of relations with our neighbor Iran and took place at the invitation of Iranian President Dr. Mahmoud Ahmadinejad."
On the issue of the security pact between Iraq and the US and the US president’s statements on the withdrawal of the countries’ troops from Iraq, Abawi said, "We are in full harmony with Iran and our position is completely transparent (on this issue). During this trip, we didn’t speak about the (Iraq-US) agreement."
Asked about the Iranian diplomats who have been arrested by the US forces in Iraq, he said Iraq has pressured Americans to release the Iranian diplomats as soon as possible, adding that the International Committee of the Red Cross (ICRC) has informed Iraqi officials that two of the Iranian inmates will be freed in the near future.
Elsewhere, he pointed out that the anti-Iran terrorist group, the Mojahedin-e Khalq Organization (MKO), will be expelled from Iraq and that his country is searching for a third country to host the group members.
Labawi expressed pleasure in his visit to Iran, and described his meetings with Iranian officials as fruitful, stressing that Iraq wants to further strengthen ties with Iran.
Pressure is growing on Iran’s main opposition group to leave Iraqi territory after living under US military protection in a camp north of Baghdad since 2003. Some 3,400 militants of the Mujahideen- e Khalq (known by the acronyms MKO
or MEK) face eviction by the government of Iraq, which has tired of a group that once fielded its own army under the tutelage of Saddam Hussein and remains on Washington’s list of terrorist groups. On Saturday, Iran’s supreme religious leader, Ayatollah Sayed Ali Khamenei, encouraged Iraqi President Jalal Talabani to follow through with Baghdad’s longstanding desire to disband Camp Ashraf, which came under Iraqi control on Jan. 1. "We await the implementation of our agreement regarding the expulsion of the hypocrites," Ayatollah Khamenei told Iraq’s visiting president, referring to the MKO by the term often used by the Islamic Republic. Mr. Talabani was quoted as saying that the MKO "have committed many crimes against the Iraqis, and the Iraqi government is determined to expel them and will go forward with its decision." His words echo those of Iraq’s national security adviser, Muwafaq al-Rubaie. "The only choices open to members of this group are to return to Iran or to choose another country," Mr. Rubaie said in Tehran last January. "Over 3,000 inhabitants of Camp Ashraf have to leave Iraq, and the camp will be part of history within two months," said Rubaie, adding that more than 900 are dual nationals and that he would be holding talks with officials of 12 countries. Those options are limited for the controversial cultlike group, whose armed wing came under Pentagon control after the fall of Mr. Hussein. Despised in Iran for bomb attacks and the killing of government officials and civilians in the first years after the 1979 Islamic revolution – and later for fighting alongside Iraqi troops against Iran during the Iran-Iraq War of the 1980s -the MKO was disarmed in 2003 but kept intact as a possible tool for use by the US against Tehran.
Terrorist list status
In January, the group toasted its removal from the European Union terrorist list. But it was delisted for legal reasons – using its removal from the British terrorism list in 2008 as part of its case. The decision has been appealed by France, and the group remains on the terror lists of some individual member states. The delisting, though, may enable some militants to be accepted in Europe. Many fear returning to Iran, though more than 300 "quitters" – as the MKO calls those who leave the organization – have gone home with little incident. "This is the end of the terrorist label," says Alireza Jafarzadeh, the group’s spokesman in Washington until 2003, when the MKO, with its several arms and variety of names, was closed down in the US. Removal from the EU list is a "major victory for the MEK and the resistance movement overall," he says. Mr. Jafarzadeh says the EU decision "strengthens" those at Camp Ashraf who refuse either to return to Iran or to leave the camp for Europe. "Any justification to expel them [from Iraq], which has been always coming from Tehran, is now gone," he says.
Still, Baghdad announced that it planned to close the camp last December, the same month the US reaffirmed the MKO’s "terrorist" status. Last year, the State Department’s global terrorism report noted the group had "planned and executed terrorist operations against the Iranian regime for nearly three decades;" had killed several Americans in Iran in the 1970s; and "displayed cultlike characteristics," such as vows of "eternal divorce" [to avoid competing loyalties] and weekly "ideological cleansings." For years, Tehran has offered amnesty to members who voluntarily return to Iran, facilitated by the International Committee of the Red Cross (ICRC). Returns have almost stopped in the past year, as Iran now wants Iraq to first screen potential returnees. "For those who wish to come back to Iran, we hope the Iranian government would give again this green light," says Peter Stocker, the head of the ICRC delegation in Tehran. Concerns in Camp Ashraf that returnees could be mistreated in Iran have not proved true in cases the ICRC has handled. "It is important to know that if anything happened to them, I don’t think it could remain hidden," says Mr. Stocker. US officials say Iran wants to prosecute 50 top MKO leaders, and has provided a list, but that perhaps only 20 are at Camp Ashraf. Returning to Iran is "absolutely not" an option, says Jafarzadeh, now an Iran commentator for Fox, contacted in Washington. "These people who are staying at Camp Ashraf are the people who are determined to oppose the Iranian regime."
Lenient treatment for returnee
Still, at least one high-ranking MKO member forced back to Iran received prison time but relatively lenient treatment. Ebrahim Khodabandeh, a British passport holder, was arrested by Syria while facilitating the exit of MKO leaders to Europe from Iraq after the fall of Baghdad in 2003. The Syrians told him he was being taken to London, but then flew him to Tehran. If he had had a cyanide pill, he says today, he would have committed suicide. "The first time I was in Evin prison, I told them: ‘My bones, my blood, my flesh is all made with the name Rajavi, so the best you can do is execute me,’" says Mr. Khodabandeh, referring to the surname of the husband and wife leaders of the MKO. "It took me two years to come to the point of realizing the MKO was a cult and I had been manipulated." He was driven around Tehran by his case officers, who wanted to show him how the capital had changed in the decades he had been away – and to show how different it was from the world described by the MKO.. Khodabandeh says Iranian intelligence understands the need to avoid the death or abuse of MKO members who return, to avoid creating martyrs. "This was very much to the benefit of the Islamic Republic," he says, now free in Tehran. "If I were executed, I would be a martyr and have my picture in the newspapers. The problem for the organization is they haven’t had a martyr for many years."
Scott Peterson Staff writer of The Christian Science Monitor
BAGHDAD, Xinhua – Iraqi President Jalal Talabani said on Monday that Iraq wanted to expel the Iranian rebel Mujahideen Khalq Organization (MKO) that
opposes the Islamic regime.
Talabani made the remarks in a joint news conference with Iran’s former president and current Expediency Council head Ali Akbar Hashemi who arrived here earlier in the day for a visit.
Speaking to the reporters, Talabani accused the MKO, also known as the PMOI (People’s Mujahedeen Organization of Iran) of supporting former Saddam Hussein regime and 
committing crimes against Iraqis.
"We here in Iraq, our constitution prohibit the presence of any foreign armed group in Iraq and the Iraqi people know that this organization is terrorist one," said the Iraqi president, adding "the Iraqi people want them out from Iraq."
MKO, a main militant group which was founded in 1981 with an aim to establish "a democratic and secular government" in Iran, bases in Iraq’s Diyala province in a camp named Camp Ashraf, which contains more than 3,000 Iranians opponents and their families.
The Shiite-dominated Iraqi government repeatedly demands MKO members to be removed from the country.
After the U.S.-led invasion, the U.S. troops disarmed the MKO fighters and since then, the camp became under the U.S. military police protection for five years before the Iraqi government partially took over security responsibility in the camp.
This is Rafsanjani’s first visit to Iraq since Iran’s Islamic revolution in 1979.
Talabani met with the former Iranian president in his residence at the edge of the heavily fortified Green Zone in central Baghdad that houses the Iraqi government offices and some foreign embassies, including the U.S. one.
Rafsanjani is also expected to meet with Iraqi Prime Minister Nuri al-Maliki and other top Iraqi officials before touring holy cities in Iraq.
At the news conference, Rafsanjani said that his country "is entirely ready to support and cooperate with the Iraqi brotherly people."
Iraq and Iran fought a bloody eight-year war in 1980s, resulting in the loss of one million lives. The relation, however, has been picking up since the Saddam Hussein regime was toppled in2003 and the Shiite came into power.
Editor: Mu Xuequan
http://news.xinhuanet.com/english/2009-03/03/content_10930887.htm
In the politics arena, the politic men come to the scene either to achieve power or to serve people. Naturally, if the politic men work for the profit of their own pockets or their own ambitions, their reputation will be damaged soon because the people will no more tolerate the abuse of their support or funding. The true use of politics is in fact to bring freedom to people.
Unfortunately, for MKO leaders the only definition for politics is the power over their victims including their cult members and Western politicians. Given the use of politics is only to achieve power; the means to reach such a goal is justified to be anything. The means could include resorting to deception and lie to deceive western powerful governments, so dependence has no place in such a policy, an organization like MKO, without any internal support in Iran, has only one way to not only gain power but also to survive. The deception policy has been a very useful trick to win western support for MKO.
But the west, especially the US government has had various groups on its payroll at one time. Now, they are funding MKO, a decade ago, they funded and trained Bin Laden to fight Russians and even further back, they worked with Ho Chi Minh to bring change in China. As it has been the fate of any group depended on US administration, the role of MKO for the US will also be expired finally, as well as what happened to AlQaida.
All the above-mentioned groups, as well as MKO, used politics to gain control over people to practice their extremist revolutionary ideas and eventually as soon as they lost their western support, they lost their existence. The history has always witnessed various examples of extremist movements’ attempts to gain the support of superpowers for their ambitions and their collapse after missing the external support.
As a matter of fact, if any movement regards the politics as a means to serve people and to bring about freedom and democracy for people, they will definitely win public support and any movement which enjoys the support of the masses is never concerned about its survival.
Mazda Parsi
Washington may court moderates within Iran rather than outside opposition
The change in tone from Washington toward Tehran is complicated not only by historic acrimony but also by a complex relationship with Iranian opposition
movements.
U.S. officials have made it clear that the Obama administration represents a possible opening for Iran.
"With respect to Iran, there is a clear opportunity for the Iranians … to demonstrate some willingness to engage meaningfully with the international community," in the words of Secretary of State Hillary Clinton.
This is in stark contrast to the previous administration and its policy of isolation. Gary Sick, a top White House aide on Iran during the Iranian hostage
crisis and now senior research scholar at Columbia University, says though the administration of George W. Bush had hoped for a better relationship with Iran in the wake of the conflict in Afghanistan, that policy was largely abandoned when the United States invaded Iraq in 2003.
Ali Safavi, a member of the Foreign Affairs Committee of the National Council of Resistance of Iran — a Paris -based group calling itself the Iranian Parliament in exile — said the approach to the Iranian regime, as well as its opposition, would be a litmus test for the Obama administration.
"There has been no shortage of goodwill gestures from the Americans toward Iran with the goal of moderation, but so far this course has failed," he said.
The NCRI, which includes members of the People’s Mujahedin of Iran, a dissident group based in Iraq’s Diyala province, has lobbied the international community to back a 16-point plan for regime change in Iran. It led a successful campaign in January to remove the PMOI from the terrorist list adopted by the European Union.
Maryam Rajavi, the controversial leader of the NCRI, hailed the decision as a victory for the Iranian resistance, saying the move paved the way for democratic change in Iran.
But the group’s image as a cult with a storied history of terrorist activity, both in Iran and across the globe, makes courting the opposition as a viable avenue for regime change in Iran tenuous at best.
The PMOI and the NCRI are both listed by the United States as terrorist organizations for their links to violent opposition to the Iranian regime.
President Bill Clinton in 1997 included the PMOI on the U.S. State Department’s list of Foreign Terrorist Organizations following the election of Iranian President Mohammad Khatami. Sick says that effort was part of a broader policy of appeasement toward the moderate Khatami, adding the State FTO list is a reflection of who Washington likes as much as who it doesn’t.
The PMOI arrived on the scene in the 1960s as a movement opposing the Western-backed Mohammad Reza Pahlavi, the shah of Iran, and supporting the Iranian Revolution in 1979 that brought Ayatollah Khomeini to power. The ideology of the PMOI, centered on Marxism, was in contradiction to the Revolution, however, and the group was exiled to Paris in 1981.
With France recognizing the Iranian regime in 1986, however, the group established itself in various camps throughout Iraq from which it ran a campaign of violence against Tehran. Though largely targeting Iranian government officials, its killing of American contractors in Tehran in the 1970s, participation alongside Saddam Hussein’s forces in suppressing Kurdish and Shiite rebellions in Iraq in 1991 and its later attacks on Iranian embassies in 1992 earned it a spot on the terrorist lists of several nations.
Its reputation for militancy, however, was not supported by recognition as a major fighting force. The PMOI surrendered its tanks and heavy artillery to U.S. forces following the 2003 invasion. Its members are now considered protected persons in Iraq under the Fourth Geneva Convention and claim to have abandoned their militant agenda in favor of peaceful opposition.
The PMOI, and its representatives in the NCRI, claim to hold valuable intelligence on Iranian operations, including Iran’s controversial nuclear program. The group often touts its unveiling of the nuclear program at the Natanz weapons facility in Iran, though several analysts note developments at Natanz were all but flaunted by the Iranian regime.
Massoud Khodabandeh, a former member of the PMOI, said those claims, and the intelligence value of reports from the NCRI/PMOI in general, are at best questionable, at worst useless.
"It is widely believed that intelligence given out by the PMOI about Iran’s nuclear facilities was given to them by Western intelligence contacts," he said.
Meanwhile, allegations have mounted that the U.S. intelligence community has funneled money to the PMOI for operations against the Iranian regime. An article in The New Yorker magazine in 2008 suggested the Bush administration had set aside some $400 million for covert operations against Iran, with a portion going to the PMOI.
The NCRI’s Safavi, however, called those allegations "completely bogus," and U.S. intelligence officers contacted for this story said there was no evidence to support those claims, though the official, speaking on the condition of anonymity, said he "wouldn’t be surprised if the allegation turned out to be true."
Meanwhile, with Iraq emerging from U.S. occupation with a shaky democracy, the relationship between Baghdad and the PMOI remains tense.
With the PMOI widely reviled in Iraq for supporting the violent suppression of the Shiite and Kurdish rebellions, and in Iran for its historic assassination policy, the group has few friends outside its groups of supporters in Europe and the United States.
Though Iraq does not have an extradition treaty with Iran, several top Iraqi officials, including Prime Minister Nouri al-Maliki, have said the group is no longer welcome in Iraq.
Both the NCRI and PMOI, through persuasive and astute campaigns aimed at generating sympathy both in the media and among world leaders, including those in the United States, have pushed for a delisting campaign with an effort to sever its ties to its terrorist past.
International lawyers in Washington, D.C., representing the PMOI filed a petition in July with the U.S. State Department seeking removal from the FTO list there, but U.S. officials say the FTO designation is appropriate.
Speaking to reporters following the Jan. 26 EU delisting, State Department deputy spokesman Robert A. Wood said "nothing has changed from our standpoint" concerning either group.
Meanwhile, the outcome of the January provincial elections in Iraq may indicate a subtle shift in Iraqi relations with Iran as the pro-Tehran Supreme Islamic Iraqi Council was trounced in the elections, largely by Maliki’s more secular State of Law slate.
Former Iranian President Khatami — widely seen as a moderate — has announced plans to run for president again in June, and though an appeal in the PMOI FTO listing case is expected to reach the U.S. Court of Appeals for the D.C. Circuit this summer, with U.S. policy currently leaning toward courting moderates within Iran, rather than outside opposition groups, little seems likely to change in the future.
By DANIEL GRAEBER, UPI Correspondent,
http://www.upi.com/Emerging_Threats/2009/02/20/
Washington_may_court_moderates_within_Iran_rather_
than_outside_opposition/UPI-42961235157864/
There are some issues that have attracted the attention of the world toward MKO. The settlement of Mojahedin in Iraqi soil and recently the recent statements made by Nouri Al-Maliki claiming that the Iraqi government refrains
to deliver organization members to the Iranian government and seeks their transfer to a third country is another issue. The world is also encountering propaganda blitz of the organization on the position taking of the US in keeping on its control over Camp Ashraf and also the MKO’s petitioning the world to hew to international conventions concerning individual rights of MKO members. The focus Mojahedin put on these issues in their sites on the one hand and their recent claim of calling their present situation a remarkable victory on the other hand seems contradictory and calls for a deep study on the overall issue and the concerned parties, i.e. MKO, Iraq, Iran, and the US. In this regard, position of Iran, Iraq, and the US toward MKO has to be reviewed to make us find an appropriate answer to the question; what are Mojahedin after by means of their present considerable propaganda blitz?
1. US position toward MKO
As acknowledged by Mojahedin, US officials consider MKO as a terrorist group; however, they insist on keeping them in Iraqi soil according to international conventions as long as its members will have been settled in a second country; yet the US considers the Iraqi government responsible for controlling Camp but recognizes its rights of deciding to keep or expel the organization from its soil. The US is after all trying to find a solution to prevent the transfer of MKO members to Iran.
2. Iraq positions toward MKO
Up to now, Iraqi officials have desisted to make any statement on their decision to deliver MKO members to the Iranian government; on the contrary, their statements imply that they will never do it. Nevertheless, Iraqi officials believe that national constitution of Iraq necessitates it to expel Mojahedin from Iraqi soil due to their committing terrorist activities therein and has let them free to decide whether relocate their camp to another country or return to Iran. It has to be noted that Iranian officials have repeatedly declared their disinclination to admit MKO members and leaders who have taken part in numerous terrorist attacks inside Iran and even have reveled a prepared list of them in advance. Therefore, there is no possibility that Iraq and the US transfer MKO members to Iran.
3. Iran position toward MKO
Although the Iranian government asked for the transfer of a number of MKO leaders as terrorist criminals to Iran after the fall of Saddam, the fact is that despite a great number of MKO detached members have returned to Iran deliberately, it is a long time when Iranian officials have declared their unwillingness to accept MKO members or even the deliberately detached members. It has to be pointed out that Iranian officials have repeatedly asserted that they have allowed MKO detached members to enter Iran due to humanistic causes and with no political motivation. However, the coming events may prove or disapprove the honesty of Iran in its claims. It is likely that the US-Iran conflict has its roots partly in the approach followed by the US toward MKO and the fact that it defends a notorious organization whose name is in its terrorist list.
Despite the clear position of the three parties mentioned, Mojahedin insist on pursuing their common approach of perverting and fabricating Iraqi and Iranian officials’ statements. In this regard, they make an attempt to inculcate their European advocators with the idea that Iraq has decided to deliver them to Iran in an act of breaking international conventions and human rights. However, the fact is that due to the crises and tensions posed to the organization during years of exile, Mojahedin cannot solve their problems legally and rationally and are used to resort to illegal shortcuts. The tactics grabbed at by Mojahedin reveal that they have always held grab to putting pressure on their dissidents to further their interests and achieve their objectives. Likewise, they are to put Iraqi government in a position to make inappropriate reactions favored by Mojahedin.
In this way, they resort to heavy propaganda blitz and illegal activities like making contact to Iraqi terrorists, intensifying the tensions inside Iraqi soil, etc. Their hostile position toward Iraqi government and their relation with problematic groups therein implies the fact that they rely much on these relations to further their interests in Iraq and also one of their pretexts for refraining to deliver the control of camp Ashraf to Iraqi government is to pave the way for their misusing of the present conditions for making contact to Iraqi problematic groups. Therefore, the Iraqi government has to concentrate its efforts on preventing Mojahedin to misuse the tensions occurred inside Iraq and also be careful not to give them any subterfuge to get their own way. However, does it mean Mojahedin are to be let free to make contact to problematic and insurgent Iraqi trends?
The fact is that perversing tactics of Mojahedin has put the winning card in their hands. The legal measures taken by Iraqi government against MKO may increase the chance of their unexpected reactions and also pave the way for their petitioning the world, yet any negligence of Mojahedin’s illegal activities may result in Mojahedin’s favored condition in furthering their illegal interests in Iraqi soil. Taking this viewpoint into consideration, whatever the course of events in the future, Mojahedin would be the winner. Furthermore, the experience shows that Mojahedin easily take advantage of suicide operations when encountering any impasse to win over, like the self-immolation of a number of MKO members in June 17th 2003 in France. However, it suffices not to take preventive measures against these activities since Mojahedin have proved that they are masters of plotting unexpected activities. In fact, they are like time bombs that despite their high destructive potentials can be deactivated if detected in time. What is of importance at the time being is that the world has to believe the destructive potentiality of MKO leaders and members.
What is to be done?
Now, this question arises: what is to be done? Evidently, the one-sided decision making of Iraq on MKO’s destiny is a risky and problematic action since, as it was experienced in global scene, Mojahedin may resort to defensive measures to foil Iraqi governments’ efforts by means of fabricating false information, suppressing the truth, initiating psychological and propaganda war, poisoning atmosphere in their own favor, and presenting themselves as the victimized party in the existing crises. In this regard and taking the strong support the US offers to Mojahedin and Mojahedin’s inclination to receive the support of the US as well as other international bodies like the ICRC, Red Crescent, and human rights activists into consideration, the cooperation of the US and international organizations with the Iraqi government may prevent MKO’s misusing the critical situation.
Therefore, the collaboration of the US as a mediator to control the overall process, the internationally recognized bodies and the Iraqi government seems necessary to arrive at a general consensus. The necessity of the presence of the US and international bodies is due to the fact that Mojahedin have proven that they have a big hand in changing their strategy and position taking in a blink of an eye and it is likely that they may accuse the Iraqi government of engaging in plots against the group as it has already spread fabrications over explosion of water pipes of camp Ashraf, missile attacks to camp Ashraf, hijacking some MKO members, and terror of Mojahedin leaders. However, the presence of the US and international bodies may put a stop to such fabrications. Also it is necessary to exercise full security control over Camp Ashraf, Mojahedin have to be totally disarmed and the cyanide capsules as well as explosives located therein be detected and collected.
In the second phase and after the formation of the council consisting of Iraq, the US and a number of concerned international organs, MKO’s high rankings should be separated from its rank-and-files so that the latter may find the opportunity of making free contacts to their families. It has to be noted that Rajavis’ refusal to separate top officials from rank-and-files implies the fact that there is a high possibility of plotting terrorist attacks regardless of the cost and form.
Also, it is necessary to declare the names of Ashraf residents openly since there are some families that are unaware of the presence of their relatives therein. Second, Ashraf residents are to interact with the outside world freely. Providing internet, satellite, journals, newspapers, and books for them is necessary in this regard. Third, they should be let free to choose their own destiny and decide for their future.
Another responsibility on international organizations in this regard is to identify those volunteer to separate MKO, and according to their will, make the ground for their transfer to Iran or other countries that may let them in. It may convince Iraqi government to allow the settlement of Mojahedin in Iraq until the time when a country consents to provide MKO members with asylum. As it was mentioned before, this solution and the interference of the US and international bodies in Iraq-Mojahedin conflict may put an end to it and prevent any possible misuse on the part of the concerned parties.
An anti-Iranian organization is seeking to base its new headquarters in Egypt, a move that could further sour relations between Tehran and Cairo. 
The People’s Mujahidin of Iran, also known as the Mujahidin Khalq Organization (MKO), is an Iranian opposition movement outlawed in Iran.
The movement has had camps in Iraq since the early 1980s and sided with former Iraqi dictator Saddam Hussein during the Iran-Iraq war. Its leaders fled to France during the 1980s.
Today, Baghdad seeks to expel MKO members from the country and MKO leaders are looking for alternative bases in the region.
Egypt recently agreed to accommodate the MKO on its soil, Iraq sources told the Iranian Mehr news organization.
Last month, European states removed the organization from its list of banned terrorist groups. However, the United States State Department still designates the MKO a foreign terrorist organization.
If Egypt accepts the MKO on its territory, this would strain already tense relations between Egypt and Tehran.
Iran cut its diplomatic relations with Egypt following the late president Anwar Sadat’s signing of the Camp David peace agreement with Israel in 1979.
Sadat’s welcoming of the shah of Iran following the collapse of his regime in 1979 sharpened the tensions between the two countries.
This was compounded when Iran named a street after Khalid Al-Islambouli, the man who assassinated Sadat in 1981.
More recently, Egypt and Iran have expressed willingness to restore diplomatic ties.
Analysts say any thaw in these relations would be subtle rather than drastic, so as not to jeopardize Egypt’s delicate relations with the United States.
Tension recently surged between Iran and Egypt over the latter’s involvement in the Gaza crisis.
If Egypt indeed agreed to host the MKO on its soil, this would signal the end of any reconciliation efforts between the two countries, said Walid Kazziha, a professor of political science at the American University in Cairo.
“This is a militia that has been antagonizing the regime in Iran since its inception,” Kazziha told The Media Line. “I imagine Egypt will not allow them as an armed band because Egyptians are very sensitive about this. But if they allow them political refuge here, the result will be eternal enmity with the Iranian regime and the question is whether this is in Egypt’s national interest.”
Written by The Media Line Staff
Zebari: Mojahedin Khalq expulsion from Iraq will be strictly monitored by a special committee
BAGHDAD – Foreign Minister Hoshyar Zebari has stated that Baghdad intends to host talks between Iran and United States over the security situation in Iraq and called for maintaining “Iraq-Iraq-U.S. triangle”.
In an exclusive interview with the Mehr News Agency, Zebari said the Iraqi government, given the current situation in the country, views hosting such talks as a priority.
He pointed out that Iran is “one of Iraq’s most important neighbors” that is seeking “special relations with Baghdad with goodwill” and that Baghdad’s relations with Tehran are of “great significance”.
He added the U.S. influence in Iraq is also “undeniable”.
Iran’s foreign minister has ruled out holding new security talks with the United States over Iraq, saying improved security situation has made such talks unnecessary.
However, Zebari said there are issues that Iran and the United States should “settle between themselves”, and in the run-up to “new Iraq” Baghdad favors cooperation between the three parties by maintaining “Iran-Iraq-U.S. triangle.”
The foreign minister also dismissed reports that Iraq is showing leniency in expelling Mojahedin Khalgh Organization (MKO), saying the Iraqi government has taken its decision on the group and the expulsion will be strictly monitored by a “special committee”.
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.
The MKO established a camp for about 3,500 members in Iraq, which its forces used to launch cross-border attacks into Iran. It fought alongside Saddam Hussein’s forces during the 1980-88 Iran-Iraq war.
Many senior Iraqi officials have assured Iran that the MKO members will soon have to leave Iraq.
Zebari also stated that Baghdad understands Tehran’s concerns about the Iranian diplomats detained by U.S forces and expressed hope that Iraq’s negotiations with the U.S. will lead to the release of the diplomats.
The U.S. military detained five Iranian diplomats in the city of Arbil, 310 km (190 miles) north of Baghdad, in January 2007. In November that year, U.S. officials said they would release two of the five diplomats.
http://www.mehrnews.com/en/NewsDetail.aspx?NewsID=835267
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
