Iran urges Europe not to give refuge to armed opposition group members being expelled from Iraq

Associated Press
December 14, 2003
BY: ALI AKBAR DAREINI

TEHRAN, Iran - Iran urged European countries Sunday not to give refuge to members of the Iraq-based Iranian opposition group Mujahedeen Khalq who have been ordered to leave Iraq, warning that the group would be a "source of instability" for their hosts.

Foreign Ministry spokesman Hamid Reza Asefi said countries taking in members if the group - which for years carried out a war on the Iranian leadership from Iraqi territory - would be violating international norms.

"If countries want to observe international regulations, they should hand them over to Iran," Asefi told reporters Sunday.

"We call on European countries not to accept them because their flight there will (become) a source of instability for the countries giving them refuge," Asefi said. He did not elaborate on how such instability would result.

The U.S.-backed Iraqi Governing Council Tuesday order that Mujahedeen Khalq members must be out of Iraq by the end of the year and that the all group's offices will be closed down.

The Mujahedeen Khalq is listed as a terrorist organization by the United States and the European Union. It is well armed and for years fought Iran's Islamic rulers from Iraq with the backing of Saddam Hussein's regime. It was disarmed by U.S. forces in Iraq soon after major hostilities ended in May.

Iraq's Governing Council said it had decided to expel the paramilitary group because of "the black history of this terrorist organization and for the crimes it had committed against our people and our neighbors."

The council also said that the group's money and weapons would be confiscated and the funds used to compensate the "victims of the bygone fascist regime."

Asefi said the council made the decision because of its "understanding the facts and knowledge that the group is a terrorist organization."

Attempting to relieve fears about treatment of Mujahedeen Khalq members, Asefi said that most of them would be handled differently if they returned to Iran.

"A majority of them were deceived and are repentant. The Islamic Republic of Iran welcomes them to return to the embrace of their families. They are allowed to return and there should be no room for concern," Asefi said.

But he warned that "a group of them have their hands stained with blood," and that those "must ... stand trial and be punished."

On Saturday, U.S. Army Lt. Gen. Ricardo Sanchez said the U.S. had restricted all 3,800 members of the Mujahedeen to their camp northeast of Baghdad and "separated" them from their weapons.

The Mujahedeen Khalq sought to topple Iran's clerical government and kept an army in Iraq while the country was under the rule of Saddam. The group sided with Saddam during his 1980-88 war against Iran.

The Mujahedeen Khalq was allied with Iran's late Ayatollah Ruhollah Khomeini's Islamic fundamentalists during the 1979 revolution that overthrew the pro-American dictatorship of Shah Mohammed Reza Pahlavi. But the new government soon banned the Mujahedeen Khalq and other groups that advocated a secular regime.

During the 1970s, the group was accused of participating in attacks that killed several Americans working on projects linked to the Shah's security services, although the group has denied targeting Americans.