Iran Group MEK's Delisting Doesn't Signal US Approval
The US removed a controversial Iranian opposition group from its list of terrorist organizations, Barbara Slavin and Laura Rozen report for Al-Monitor, after most of its members decamped from their base near Baghdad. The move does not mean the US condones the Mujahedin-e-Khalq, which has assassinated Americans and Iranians.
Secretary of State Hillary Clinton has decided to take a controversial Iranian opposition group, the Mujahedin-e-Khalq (MEK), off the State Department’s list of terrorist organizations as compensation for the group’s almost complete evacuation of its historic base in Iraq, a US official told Al-Monitor on Friday.
The official, speaking to Al-Monitor on condition of anonymity, said the decision — first reported by CNN’s Elise Labott — reflected the fact that all but 200 MEK members have now relocated from Camp Ashraf north of Baghdad to a facility near Baghdad airport, where they will be processed for resettlement out of Iraq by the UN High Commissioner for Refugees.
Iraq’s pro-Iranian Shiite government has insisted for years that the MEK — a once militant group that lost out in the post-1979 revolution struggle for power in Iran — vacate the camp that had been its base since the mid-1980s. Only by holding out the prospect of delisting, however, was the Barack Obama administration able to convince more than 3,000 members of the group to leave in several batches this year.
Clinton Friday notified Congress that she would be delisting the MEK in time to meet an Oct. 1 deadline set by a US court.
