Iran protests US decision to send People's Mujahedeen to other countries

Agence France Presse
December 23, 2003

TEHRAN, Dec 23 (AFP) - The Iranian foreign ministry summoned the Swiss ambassador, who heads the US interest section here, to protest remarks by US Iraq overseer Paul Bremer that People's Mujahedeen members would not be expelled to Iran but sent to third countries, the press reported Tuesday.

Iran "is deeply concerned about the aftermath of such irresponsible remarks," the ministry's director general of American affairs, Mohammad Hasan Fadaie Fard, was quoted as telling Swiss envoy Tim Guldimann.

"If they provide safe havens for them, they will not only further promote terrorism, but also violate the articles of the UN Security Council Resolution 1373, which is a dangerous precedent that can be taken advantage of by other supporters of international terrorism."

On Monday, Iran's reformist President Mohammad Khatami proposed that members of the Iraq-based People's Mujahedeen, the main Iranian armed opposition, return home, vowing they would be treated with leniency.

"The majority who did not commit a crime and do not have blood on their hands are like our children and we must act with leniency towards them, but those who committed crimes will be tried with fairness," he added.

On Sunday, Iranian officials reacted angrily after the US ruler of Iraq, Paul Bremer, said Mujahedeen members would not be expelled to Iran but to third countries.

The US-installed interim Governing Council announced on December 9 that it planned to deport the People's Mujahedeen group by the end of this month.

Two days later, council member Nurredin Dara proposed expelling them to Iran, a move the group protested would amount to a war crime.

The group mounted attacks inside Iran from neighbouring Iraq when Saddam Hussein was in power, but surrendered to the coalition in May, when US troops disarmed more than 3,800 of them.

They are now guarded by US troops at their base in Camp Ashraf, northeast of the Iraqi capital.