IRAQ PLANS to close a camp for Iranian dissidents who used to cross into Iran to mount assassinations and sabotage – a decision that has sharpened political differences between Baghdad and Washington. Camp Ashraf, about 130km north of Baghdad, came under Iraqi control yesterday in a broad security handover that forms part of the US withdrawal agreement concluded late last year….

Independent visitors to Camp Ashraf report that the inmates live in segregated barracks-style rooms. The International Committee for the Red Cross says several hundred former MEK members have left Camp Ashraf since 2003. The ICRC has helped more than 250 cross the border to Iran after conducting private interviews with each to ensure they are going voluntarily…

Maliki was speaking to reporters on the sideline of a ceremony during which the United States handed over to Iraqi forces security control of the Green Zone, symbol of the American occupation of the country. ..The PMOI”is a terrorist organisation and thus cannot operate in Iraq because it will create a political crisis in contradiction with the constitution,”Maliki said.”We will treat them based on the international laws.

Al-Maliki also announced that there is”no place in Iraq for the terrorist”Mujahidin-e Khalq (MEK/PMOI/MKO) organization. The Iraqi government has taken control of Camp Ashraf, northeast of Baghdad, the terrorist training camp leased by Saddam Hussein to 3500 members of the Iranian MEK cult…In the end, as usual in the Bush administration, Washington gave us the worst compromise possible, declaring MEK a terrorist organization and going on using it for espionage and sabotage in Iran as well as against Iraqi Shiites

Iraq has decided to shut down the terrorist Mojahedin Khalq Organization (MKO/PMOI) Ashraf Camp as soon as possible, expel the MKO members from Iraq and close their file forever, said a senior Iraqi official. Political advisor of the Supreme Council for the Islamic Revolution in Iraq (SCIRI), Muhsin Al-Hakim exclusively told IRNA that Baghdad considered the MKO as a terrorist group.

This is the very prominent feature of Mojahedin[MKO/PMOI/MEK] leadership particularly after the development of the ideological revolution that aimed at the legitimization of the idea that the ideological leadership of Rajavi would be no longer accountable to anybody. In addition, it was assumed that faultfinding with Rajavi would be a great and unforgivable sin. The study of the background and reasons of the occurrence of this feature in cult relations from a historical and theoretical point of view may give us a better understanding of the issue.

Following the Iraqi government’s statement, a White House spokesman, Benjamin Chang, said that the US received guarantees from Baghdad that MKO/PMOI members residing in Iraq would not be”forcibly transferred”to a country where they may face charges. An Iraqi official, however, disputed the claims, indicating that no security guarantees had been granted to MKO members.

MKO: Turned On…Turned Down… Turned Out