The 25-year-old Camp Ashraf, home to the People’s Mujahideen Organisation of Iran, or PMOI, an Iranian opposition group that the United States and Iran officially consider a terrorist group, is some 65 km (40 miles) from Baghdad.Iraq’s Premier Nuri al-Maliki said he had agreed to extend the deadline on condition the U.N. transfer about 400-800 residents to other countries before the end of this year…
Recent MEK defectors from the camp interviewed by the Monitor say further dramatic acts may take place, as the deadline nears.”It’s clear to me, [Mr. Rajavi] wants people to get killed, and send it to the media,”argues Shahram Heydari, who left the camp two months ago. When the April clashes took place with Iraqi troops, he claims,”I clearly saw they [MEK aka MKO/PMOI] were pushing people forward”into the line of fire..
The fate of Camp Ashraf is one of the main unresolved issues left over after U.S. forces withdrew from Iraq this month. Residents of the camp have long said they fear for their safety at the hands of Iraqi authorities without U.S. protection…The leader of the group said on Tuesday it would agree to a United Nations plan to move residents of a dissident camp in Iraq to a new location, depending on certain conditions and guarantees…
U.N. spokesman Martin Nesirky said Tuesday that the top U.N. envoy in Iraq, has made helping the Iraqi authorities and camp residents find a workable solution”a top priority.””The U.N.’s role here is to facilitate, to help the Iraqi government and the camp residents,”..ultimately it is the responsibility of the Iraqi authorities to work to find a peaceful way out of this, and for the residents of the camp likewise to shoulder their responsibility.”
U.S. officials fear that unless MEK leader Maryam Rajavi gives her approval, there will be a bloodbath at Camp Ashraf, an MEK base 56 kilometers north of Baghdad that Iraqi leaders insist must close by Dec. 31. There are particular concerns that MEK members will clash with Iraqi security forces or commit mass suicide.. Experts on the MEK accuse its leaders of holding its own members hostage to efforts to get the organisation removed from the U.S. State Department’s list of FTOs.
“It will not in effect be an MEK-run facility, this is an Iraqi facility,”the official said, while stressing there would be U.N. monitors present to assure the facility does”not exist in the dark.”A second administration official described the facility as one with a good deal of”infrastructure,”and at a site that is”well known”to the United States. Neither official would confirm or deny whether the proposed facility is a former U.S. military base..
Labid Majid Abbawi said the residents of Camp Ashraf in Iraq will be transferred to another camp until the United Nations High Commissioner for Refugees (UNHCR) completes the necessary paperwork so that the Iranian refugees”can be sent to any country of their desire.”He said they would also have the opportunity to return to Iran.”For those who would like to go back to their own country, to Iran,..
And Maliki also said that Iraq’s decision to close Camp Ashraf, which is occupied by the opposition People’s Mujahedeen Organisation of Iran (PMOI), is final.”The decision we made is irreversible,”Maliki said. He said that a United Nations representative was not permitted to visit Camp Ashraf, and that the PMOI aka MKO/MEK had also refused to implement a UN plan to shut down the camp, saying that this reinforced Iraq’s decision. ..
The MEK fled Iran in the mid-1980s and took up arms with Saddam Hussein in the fight against Iran; the group has also been linked to Hussein’s violent suppression of Iraqi Shiites and Kurds, according to the Council on Foreign Relations…The Obama administration has won Iraqi agreement for a plan that could avoid these outcomes. Overseen by the U.N. envoy to Iraq, it calls for the MEK members to be moved to the United States’ former Camp Liberty base..
The ICRC is prepared to visit anyone from Camp Ashraf whom the Iraqi authorities may detain. We would assess their conditions of detention and treatment, and would help them restore contact with their relatives, through Red Cross messages for instance. The ICRC is already making regular visits to detainees in Iraq, and we would assist any detained persons from Ashraf Camp in the same way. In 2009, the ICRC visited 36 Ashraf residents detained by the Iraqi authorities. ..