UN opposes giving asylum to MKO members

TEHRAN, March 4 (MNA) – United Nations High Commissioner for Refugees António Guterres said that the UN does not agree to give asylum to the members of the terrorist Mojahedin Khalq Organization (MKO), the Habilian Association website reported on Saturday. The UNHCR does not give asylum to groups or organizations, rather asylum is granted to individuals under the condition of abandoning violence, Guterres said during a recent meeting with Iraqi Minister of Human Rights Muhammad Shia al-Sudani in Geneva. The MKO is blacklisted by much of the international community, including the United States. The U.S. government characterized the MKO as a cult and designated it a terrorist group in 1997, holding it responsible for the assassinations of three U.S. Army officers and three civilian contractors before the Islamic Revolution (in 1979). With funding from the Iranian diaspora, the MKO has mounted a major campaign in the U.S. and Europe and enlisted many top national security figures from mostly Republican administrations as well as a number of prominent Democratic politicians to get its terrorist designation lifted.