Iran, Iraq to shut down Camp Ashraf: Talabani
AFP, Saturday 25 Jun 2011
The Iraqi president announced that the leftist mujahedeen resistance camp of 3,400 people in Iraq will be shut down between Iran, Iraq and the Red Cross by year's end


Tehran and Baghdad have formed a joint committee with the Red Cross to shut down Camp Ashraf in Iraq which houses thousands of outlawed Iranian opponents, Iraqi President Jalal Talabani said Saturday.

"The camp will be shut down by the end of this year," Talabani said on the sidelines of a counter-terrorism summit in Tehran, the official IRNA news agency reported.

"For this, a tripartite committee has been set up by Iraq, Iran and the International Red Cross to make decisions and follow up on necessary measures to shut down the camp of this terrorist group," IRNA quoted him as saying.

The People's Mujahedeen set up Camp Ashraf in the 1980s -- when now-executed Iraqi dictator Saddam Hussein's regime was at war with Iran -- as a base from which to operate against Tehran. It is home to some 3,400 people.

The group, which describes itself as both left-wing and Islamic, opposed the Shah of Iran and now seeks to oust the clerical regime that took power in Tehran in the 1979 revolution.

Iraqi Foreign Minister Hoshyar Zebari proposed during a visit Tuesday to Tehran the formation of a tripartite committee to "resolve the issues of Camp Ashraf."

"We have asked international organisations and European parliaments to encourage the [group's] members to leave Iraq and to facilitate [the movement of] those members who seek to go those countries," Zebari said.

The announcement was met with a "vigorous" condemnation by the National Council of Resistance of Iran, the broad grouping that includes the People's Mujahedeen.

The NCRI said that allowing the Iranian regime to "interfere in the issue of Ashraf is a red line that should not be crossed," and called on the ICRC "not to lose credibility by participating in this plan of repression."

"The UN and the US government must take responsibility to protect the unarmed and defenceless people at Ashraf, and they will be held responsible for any attack that will target them," the NCRI warned in a statement.

Camp Ashraf has become a mounting problem for Iraqi authorities since US forces handed over security for the camp in January 2009, and amid pressure from Tehran to hand over the members of the militant group.

On 8 April Iraqi security forces carried out a deadly raid on the camp, inside Iraq and near the border with Iran, killing 34 members of the group.

https://english.ahram.org.eg/News/14995.aspx