According to Buratha news, Iranian ambassador to Iraq Hassan Kazemi Qomi, who headed the Iranian delegation in Iran-US talks on Iraq, answered questions of reporters in a press conference after meeting his American counterpart; in response to a question on MKO, he said:”We didn’t talk about this top in this session but it’s on our agenda for future meetings.”
Diplomats from Iran and the United States are scheduled to meet in Baghdad on May 28 to discuss the deteriorating security situation in Iraq. It is the first time since the 1979 Islamic Revolution that officials from Iran and the U.S. will be meeting face to face. Even though Iranian and U.S. officials have stated that the security situation in Iraq is the only topic on the agenda of the talks
Iranian opposition group Mojahedin-e Khalq had close ties with former regime’s security and military services because they had common goals, and therefore it was strongly involved in suppressing the uprising of people after 1991 invasion to Kuwait. Following the ouster of Saddam regime, the elements of this group were protected by US soldiers; American’s put the MKO members in one of its camps in Diala province.
Al-Sabah newspaper, a publication financed by the Shiite-led Iraqi government said the agenda of the talks would include four key issues -“the supplies of Iranian weapons to Iraqi militant groups, the Mujahadeen-e-Khalq organization, the U.S. military presence in the Persian Gulf region and the withdrawal of American troops from Iraq.”
Mojahedin have to make their destiny tied with their stay in Iraq. However, the insistence of Iraqi government to expel MKO for its interference in internal affairs and its link with questionable groups indicates that MKO’s present stay in Iraq is indebted to the Iraq’s instable situation. The comments of Shirvan al-Vaeli, Iraq’s security minister published in ‘Al-Hayat’ newspaper in London indicates that”Initial agreements have been reached between Iraqi government and the US” concerning the situating of MKO in Iraq.
The main reason was that Saddam wanted to change human structure of Iraq while Shiites and Kurds comprised more than 80 percent of Iraqi population. After revolution in Iran and closure of US and Israeli embassies in Tehran, Americans thought of coup in Iran in order to compensate their failure.
Shirvan al-Vaeli, Iraq’s security minister, said in an interview with London-based Al-Hayat that”the MKO had created security crisis in Iraq.””Initial agreements have been reached between Iraqi government and the US, which is responsible for protecting MKO members in Iraq, on the issue of how to protect these people,”he added.
Although the closure of a major crossing point on the Iraq-Iran border is considered by some senior Kurdish figures as an attempt by the government to undermine the Iraqi-Kurdistan region, the Iraqi government insists that the closure of Munthiriya was a security measure to prevent the moves
But you probably missed the story because (according to a reader who sent it to me) it was posted very briefly on CNN’s front page and then quickly disappeared. No other major outlet (and very few minor ones) seem to have picked it up. The CNN story quotes Shirwan al-Wa’eli,…
… people of Halabja who on March 16th, 1988 suffered the worst chemical attacks committed by the Iraqi regime. On that day, 5,000 innocent civilians, 75% women and children, immediately perished. This was not the only chemical attack ordered by Saddam, it was just the worst