By Caroline Alexander
May 29 (Bloomberg) – British lawmakers urged the U.S. to take control of a camp in Iraq filled with Iranian opponents of the government in Tehran after Iraqi police raided the site.
Forty-four members of the all-party Parliamentary Committee for Iran Freedom said they wrote to Secretary of State Hillary Clinton, asking for U.S. forces, under United Nations monitoring, to take over security at Camp Ashraf. The British lawmakers also condemned Iraq for ignoring a European Union resolution in support of the Iranian dissidents, some of whom have been in the camp since they fled Iran in 1986.
By Caroline Alexander
May 29 (Bloomberg) – British lawmakers urged the U.S. to take control of a camp in Iraq filled with Iranian opponents of the government in Tehran after Iraqi police raided the site.
Forty-four members of the all-party Parliamentary Committee for Iran Freedom said they wrote to Secretary of State Hillary Clinton, asking for U.S. forces, under United Nations monitoring, to take over security at Camp Ashraf. The British lawmakers also condemned Iraq for ignoring a European Union resolution in support of the Iranian dissidents, some of whom have been in the camp since they fled Iran in 1986.
“Iraq has refused to acknowledge the rights of Ashraf residents,” the group said. “U.S. intervention is therefore imperative both to prevent the entry of Iraqi police forces inside Ashraf and to stop this crisis in its tracks.”
The U.K. lawmakers said the Iraqi actions are being taken at the behest of Iran, and that the raid today is linked to Iran’s June 12 election, according to the statement, which was e-mailed from the office of lawmaker Robin Corbett.
“To have Mahmoud Ahmadinejad re-appointed to the presidency, Supreme Leader Ali Khamenei is increasing pressure on the opposition to the theocratic regime,” the group said.
Camp Ashraf, 60 miles (100 kilometers) east of Baghdad, is home to about 3,500 members of the People’s Mujahedeen Organization of Iran. They allege Iraqi troops surrounded the camp four months ago, allowing in only limited food supplies and preventing doctors from entering.
Security Agreement
Iraq took control of the camp, near the border with Iran, from U.S. forces on Jan. 1 under an agreement to transfer security to Iraqi national forces.
The European Parliament on April 24 called on Iraq “to protect the lives, and the physical and moral integrity” of the Mujahedeen, and to clarify its “intentions toward them.” Iraq and Iran, both with Shiite Muslim majorities, have developed closer ties since the ouster of the late Iraqi President Saddam Hussein, whose Sunni Muslim-led regime persecuted the Shiites.
The Mujahedeen, who opposed Iran’s late Shah Mohammed Reza Pahlavi and then fell out with the clerical regime brought to power by the 1979 Islamic Revolution, are considered a terrorist organization by the U.S. The EU removed the group, part of the France-based National Council of Resistance of Iran, from its terrorist list in January.
