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Iraq repeats pledge to close Iran opposition camp
By ALI AKBAR DAREINI,Associated Press Writer AP - Saturday, January 24
TEHRAN, Iran - A senior Iraqi official said his government's decision to close a camp for members of an Iranian opposition group was "irreversible" because authorities do not tolerate anti-Iranian activities on their soil.
National security adviser Mouwaffak al-Rubaie, said during a visit to Tehran that members of the People's Mujahedeen _ known as the Mujahedeen-e-Khalq _ will be given the option of going back to Iran or going to a third country.
In Baghdad, the chairman of parliament' defense committee, Abbas al-Bayati, said later Friday that individual camp members would also have the option of accepting temporary lodging in Iraq at a place of the government's choosing.
Camp Ashraf was founded in 1986 when Saddam Hussein allowed the People's Mujahedeen to establish a base north of Baghdad to launch raids into Iran.
After U.S.-led forces overthrew Saddam in 2003, American troops removed the group's weapons and confined its fighters to the camp. Iraq assumed responsibility for the base north of Baghdad under a new security deal which started January 1. The Iraqi government has given the 3,500 members of the group two months to decide where to go.
Prime Minister Nouri al-Maliki said this month that the People's Mujahedeen can "no longer operate in Iraq" but pledged he would not force the group back to Iran. U.S. Ambassador Ryan Crocker has said that the Iraqi government had given similar assurances to U.S. authorities.
In Tehran Friday, al-Rubaie said, according to the official IRNA news agency, "The Iraqi government considers this group a terrorist group ... this group's hands are tainted with Iranian blood. Also, we know that this group has taken hostile acts against the Iraqi people."
Al-Rubaie said Monday that a camp resident confessed that his leaders told him to carry out a suicide attack against Iraqi security forces guarding Camp Ashraf. He said the goal of the alleged plot was to embarrass the Iraqi government and generate international sympathy for the exiles.
But the political wing of the People's Mujahedeen, the Paris-based National Council of Resistance, called the claim a lie.
The People's Mujahedeen was added to the U.S. terrorist list in 1997, and to the European Union list in 2002. The group insists the designation is unfair, saying it renounced violence in 2001 and kept arms only to defend itself.
The EU presidency reported a preliminary deal Friday to take the group off the EU's terrorist list. If the foreign ministers agree to remove the Paris-based group, it will be the first time an organization has been "de-listed" by the EU. The European Court of Justice has repeatedly ruled that EU governments have failed to prove the group is a terrorist outfit.
The People's Mujahedeen was founded in Iran in the 1960s and helped followers of Ayatollah Ruhollah Khomeini overthrow U.S.-backed Shah Mohammed Reza Pahlavi in 1979.
But the People's Mujahedeen fell out with Khomeini, and thousands of its followers are believed to have been killed, imprisoned or forced into exile.
___
Associated Press writers Robert Wielard in Brussels, and Robert H. Reid in Baghdad contributed to this report.
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