Reported by BBC originally in Persian, a group of Mojahedin-e Khalq’s detached members arrived in France. It is the first of a number of groups that managed to leave Iraq for a Western country. In the past months, groups of separated members have struggled to get to Western countries through neighboring countries

Pars Brief – Issue No.40

I was acquainted with the Mojahedin-e Khalq Organisation (MKO) in the university. They spoke about freedom and justice and also Islam and recruited me into their organisation. The same year, that is December 1987, I was sent to Iraq for a short visit and I returned back to Turkey. The following year I was asked to go to Turkey for a short visit again and I accepted. But this time my passport was taken away from me and they did not let me go back to Turkey.

Our enemies have put their backs into growing disunion between us, especially during recent 30 years after the victory of the Islamic Revolution in Iran. Iran and Iraq have many things in common. All of us remember the era of Saddam in power during which the Baath party played the dividing role among different Iraqi peoples and groups and also applied its every means for the establishment of disunion and bloodshed between Iran and Iraq.

… The American officer in charge recorded my particulars and after full investigation and taking orders from his superiors realised that they have been deceived by the MKO persons and I have been subject to a conspiracy where the Iraqi police was made to get involved. He asked the Iraqi police personnel to release me and after I finished my job to escort me back to my taxi that was still waiting for me, and do not let the MKO people bother me anymore or harm me. Meanwhile the American colonel talked to me on the line and assured me that there would be no problem for me and he expressed his wishes that I would make a safe return back to Baghdad …

Hoshiar Esmail says the biggest mistake of his life was to leave his safe exile in Switzerland and to return to the Mojahedin-e Khalgh (Volksmujahedin). In 1998, he went to Iraq, where the armed Iranian opposition group, equipped with weapons and money from the former Iraqi regime, led the struggle against the mullahs’ regime. But since then the political situation in Iraq has changed fundamentally. The Shiite and Kurdish-dominated government is pursuing a course of rapprochement with the former enemy Iran, which culminated in the recent visit of Iranian President Mahmoud Ahmadinejad.

An Iranian envoy also addressed the council, accusing the United States of supporting the Iraq-based People’s Mujahideen (MKO) guerrilla group. The MKO is banned as a terrorist group in Iran, the United States and the European Union.

I am Keyvan Radbin. I was born on Sep. 22-1971 in Tehran. I got familiar with MKO by their TV and Radio programs. I became their full-time sympathizer from 1999 to 2001 in Tehran and my activities contained social and advertising for the organization. I leaved Iran to Iraq from Turkey for joining to MKO on July 18-2001. I stayed in Turkey for around one month and then after explanation process by the organization’s people in charge, I got moved to Iraq first to Basra port and then to Baghdad. After staying in Baghdad for half day I was moved to Ashraf camp.