Khatami proposes Iraq-based rebels return to Iran

Agence France Presse
December 22, 2003

TEHRAN, Dec 22 (AFP) - Iran's reformist President Mohammad Khatami proposed Monday that members of the Iraq-based People's Mujahedeen, the main Iranian armed opposition, return home and vowed 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 told reporters.

"We propose that they return to Iran," the president added.

"There should be no discrimination" in dealing with the Mujahedeen, which the United States and European Union have branded as terrorist groups, Khatami said on the sidelines of an Islamic conference.

"So they should be dealt with like other terrorist groups."

On Sunday, Iranian officials reacted angrily after the US ruler of Iraq, Paul Bremer, said Mujahedeen members would not be expelled to Iran but rather sent 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 which the armed opposition 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.