Iraq won’t force MKO back to Iran- VOA

BAGHDAD / IraqiNews.com: The U.S. Department of State said that Iraq has assured the United States that it will not force members of the Iranian rebel group Mujahedeen Khalq Organization (MKO) to return to Iran, according to Voice of America (VOA). “In a talk with reporters, State Department Deputy Spokesman Robert Wood said Iraqi officials also assured the United States there will be no effort to forcibly repatriate the rebels to Iran despite calls for that from Tehran,” the official external radio and television broadcasting service of the United States federal government said. “The status of about 3,500 members of the Iranian exile group, the Mujaheddin-e Khalq, or MEK, has been an issue of contention between Iraq and Iran. “The Iraqi government served notice late last week that it intends to evict the MEK members from its U.S.-protected encampment north of Baghdad. But officials here say Baghdad authorities have assured the Bush administration the group’s members will not be forced to return to Iran, where they could face imprisonment or worse,” it added. “‘We’ve talked to the Iraqis about the Mujaheddine-e Khalq in Camp Ashraf, and they’ve committed to us that they would deal with these people according to the Iraqi constitution. They would not force anybody to return to Iran, and we believe that to be the case, that they don’t plan to do that. And we’ll go from there’,” VOI quoted Wood as saying. The group, which began as part of the Iranian resistance to Shah Mohammed Reza Pahlavi’s rule in the mid-1960s, was driven into exile after Iran’s 1979 revolution and re-formed in Iraq, where it was nurtured by Saddam Hussein. After the American invasion, it was disarmed and its members recognized as refugees by the United Nations. SS (S) 1