UN envoy to Iraq cites lack of cooperation by MKO members as obstacle to move

TEHRAN,June 29(MNA) – The United Nations envoy to Iraq has said that the Mujahedin-e Khalq Organization (MKO) denies its members freedom of movement, and that efforts to relocate them outside Iraq are being stymied in part by lack of cooperation from the residents themselves. Martin Kobler made the comments in an interview with the Associated Press in Baghdad on Wednesday. The UN has been involved in relocating members of the MKO, which is also known as MEK and is regarded by Iran as a terrorist group, to a camp on the outskirts of the Iraqi capital while it works to resettle them abroad. The MEK began a campaign of assassinations and bombings in Iran shortly after the victory of the Islamic Revolution in 1979. The group moved to Iraq in the early 1980s and fought Iran from there until the United States invaded the country in March 2003. About 3,100 MEK members live in Camp Liberty, a former U.S. military base near Baghdad airport. The Iraqi government wants the group’s members out of the country. Kobler acknowledged that a major problem in resettling camp residents is a shortage of countries willing to accept them. He repeated his call for UN member states, including the U.S., to do more. “We do not have enough recipient countries… There is also reluctance from the side of the Liberty residents to cooperate with the UNHCR,” he said, referring to the UN refugee agency. Albania has agreed to take 210 camp residents, but only 71 have made the move so far. Germany has also offered to take 100 residents. Kobler also cited concerns about what he called “human rights abuses inside Camp Liberty done by the MEK themselves.” Residents are not free to move between different sections of the camp without approval, and some are denied Internet and mobile phone access by MEK officials, he said. Medical treatment outside is also often blocked by the group, he added. “There are, of course, MEK residents who probably would like to disassociate themselves from the MEK,” he said. “Everybody who wants to go out of the camp… should have the chance to do so.” “The only purpose they serve is they set the stage for more attacks,” he said, insisting that residents cooperate with the UN. The Iraqi government, which has close ties to Iran, considers the MEK a terrorist group. Ali al-Moussawi, a spokesman for Iraqi Prime Minister Nouri al-Maliki, said Baghdad also has concerns that MEK leaders are preventing residents from leaving. “There is intimidation being practiced by some MEK leaders against their fellow people,” al-Moussawi said. “Some MEK members are willing to leave the country, but they are being threatened by a minority preventing them.” Several residents were killed in a February 9 rocket strike on the camp, and two others died in a similar attack this month.