EP calls on U.S. to help MKO

BAGHDAD / IraqiNews.com: The European Parliament urged the United States and the U.N. on Thursday to provide immediate aid to an Iranian opposition group camped near Baghdad since the 1980’s. In a nonbinding resolution, lawmakers asked the European Union to pressure the U.S. government to take the People’s Mujahedeen Organization off the State Department’s list of foreign terrorist organizations. The presence of the Iranian group – also known as the Mujahedeen-e-Khalq – has long irritated the Iraqi government. The EU removed the organization from its list of banned terrorist groups last year. The U.S. military relinquished control over Camp Ashraf and its 3,400 Iranian inhabitants last June, turning it over to Iraqi forces. “The U.S. terror label … and unlawful transfer of Ashraf protection to Iraqi forces both constitute participation in suppression of Iranian opposition and obstruct the way for change in Iran,” Maryam Rajavi, president-elect of the leading opposition group National Council of Resistance of Iran, said in a statement. In July, a U.S. federal appeals court in Washington D.C. ordered the State Department to reconsider keeping the mujahedeen on its list, which prohibits it from raising money and obtaining other support in the United States. SH (S) 4