TEHRAN, 11 December 2003 — Senior Iranian officials yesterday welcomed a decision by Iraq’s Governing Council to expel an Iranian opposition group and said group members could return home if they had not committed crimes against Iran.
Iraq’s US-installed governing council decided on Tuesday to expel the People’s Mujahedeen (also known as the Mujahedeen Khalq) by the end of the month and confiscate its assets.
“Naturally the decision is highly acceptable and we welcome it,” Vice President Mohammad Ali Abtahi told reporters.
US officials said last month the Mujahedeen, who seek to install a secular government to replace Iran’s clerical leaders, were being screened for possible involvement in war crimes, terrorism and other activities.
“Those whose hands are not besmirched with the blood of Iranians can return to the embrace of their nation and will be pardoned,” Intelligence Minister Ali Yunesi told reporters.
Mujahedeen members surrendered to US forces invading neighboring Iraq earlier this year and are being held in camps in the north. It was not clear where they would go if expelled.
A European diplomat in Tehran said the decision by the governing council, whose authority is limited, to expel the Mujahedeen was unrealistic and designed to “please the Iranians and annoy the (US-led) coalition in Iraq”. “For a start the MEK (Mujahedeen) fighters are being held under the Americans’ control. And then there’s the problem of where would they go, because not many would want to go to Iran and no other country would want them,” he said.
The Mujahedeen said the expulsion was planned by Iran and reflected the “fantasies” of Tehran’s clerical leadership about removing a group it considers a threat.
Government spokesman Abdullah Ramazanzadeh denied Iran had arranged the plan with its arch-foe the United States and Iraq.
“We have not struck a deal with anyone on the terrorist groups,” Ramazanzadeh told reporters when he was asked about possibility of a deal.
Iran denied the possibility that detained members of the Al-Qaeda network would be swapped in return for the Mujaheddin.
“There is an international protocol on extradition of terrorists as a legal basis,” Ramazanzadeh told reporters in Teheran.
“But there will be no swap in any form,” the spokesman said.
Some US officials have suggested US forces on the ground are moving too slowly to disarm the group, possibly because of a preoccupation with a growing insurgency against them. The US-led coalition that toppled Saddam Hussein in April set up the governing council as an interim body before the planned transfer of sovereignty to Iraqis.
