MKO says last convoy will move from Camp Ashraf on Sept. 12

TEHRAN,Sept.2(MNA) – The terrorist Mojahedin Khalq Organization (MKO) has said that a final convoy of 680 of its members will leave Camp Ashraf on September 12 for the new Hurriya transit center near Baghdad, AFP reported on Saturday. “Around 680 Ashraf residents will be ready to move from Ashraf to Camp Liberty (Hurriya) on September 12, and they could start loading their belongings from tomorrow (Saturday),” Maryam Rajavi, the MKO ringleader, said in a statement. Earlier this week, the United States welcomed renewed efforts to relocate the residents of Camp Ashraf, which has housed members of the MKO for years. State Department spokeswoman Victoria Nuland noted the “safe arrival” last week of a sixth convoy of about 400 residents of Camp Ashraf to Camp Hurriya, a former U.S. military base once known as Camp Liberty. A U.S. official who asked not to be named said that the camp could be completely empty “before the end of September.” Iraq had been locked in a dispute with the MKO over plans to relocate them to Camp Hurriya. Camp Ashraf is located 50 miles (80 kilometers) northeast of Baghdad. Hurriya is just outside the Iraqi capital. Under a December 2011 agreement between the United Nations and the Iraqi government, Baghdad was due to transfer the refugees from Ashraf to Hurriya. About 2,000 of the refugees have been transferred, but the relocation of 1,200 others stalled in early May. In early August, the MKO said evacuations had resumed. The MKO started its activities as a terrorist group based in Iraq in the early 1980s. In addition to the assassination of hundreds of Iranian officials and citizens, the group cooperated with Saddam Hussein’s Baathist regime in its repression of the Iraqi people. The United States added the MKO to its official list of foreign terrorist organizations in 1997, but the group has since said that it has renounced violence and has mounted a legal and public relations campaign to have its terrorist designation dropped.