The US warned an Iranian dissident group on Monday to follow through on plans to close a base in Iraq founded under former Iraqi president Saddam Hussein, saying it was “gravely mistaken” to believe there was any other option.
The US Department of State urged the group, the Mujahedin-e Khalq (MEK), to resume transferring its members from the Camp Ashraf base to a converted US military facility under an Iraqi government plan to eventually expel them from the country.
“The peaceful closure of Camp Ashraf is achievable,” State Department spokeswoman Victoria Nuland said in a statement. “Constructive offers must be met with a constructive spirit, and not with refusals or preconditions to engage in dialogue.”
The group, which calls for the overthrow of Iran’s clerical leaders, is no longer welcome in Iraq under the Shiite-led government that came to power after Saddam’s downfall in 2003.
Also known as the People’s Mujahideen Organization of Iran, the group led a guerrilla campaign against the US-backed Shah of Iran during the 1970s that included attacks on US targets.
The US added the MEK to its official list of foreign terrorist organizations in 1997, but the group has since said that it has renounced violence and has mounted a legal and public relations campaign to have its terrorist designation dropped.
US officials say that about 1,200 to 1,400 residents remain at Camp Ashraf, while about 2,000 have relocated to the new base outside of Baghdad since transfers began in February.
A US appeals court this month ordered US Secretary of State Hillary Rodham Clinton to decide within four months whether to drop the MEK from the terrorist list and US officials have signaled that closing Camp Ashraf is a necessary first step.
US officials said on Monday that the process appeared stalemated. The MEK stopped convoys of Camp Ashraf residents to the new facility early last month and has reduced contact with the Iraqi government and with UN authorities seeking to process MEK members as potential refugees, they said.
“We don’t know why the MEK slowdown is underway,” one senior US official said, speaking on condition of anonymity.
The official added that the group’s leaders might have overinterpreted the US court ruling as a guarantee that it would escape the terrorist list.
“It appears that the MEK leaders believe that the secretary has no choice now but to delist them and that is quite plainly wrong,” said a second senior US official, also speaking on condition of anonymity.
“The MEK’s cooperation in the successful and peaceful closure of Camp Ashraf will be a key factor in her decision ... She [Clinton] retains complete discretion on this matter,” this official said.
US officials said the MEK may also believe it can wait out the government of Iraqi Prime Minister Nouri al-Maliki, which has signaled that it is determined to see the group removed from Iraq.
“We believe that they are gravely mistaken to think that any conceivable Iraqi government would in fact allow them to remain as a paramilitary organization in Iraq,” the first official said. “If they are overconfident they are making a serious, serious mistake.”
The State Department also called on Baghdad to do more to provide for the safety, security, and humanitarian treatment of the former Camp Ashraf residents. The MEK has complained of mistreatment and poor conditions at the new facility where they are being transferred.
A group of senior Iraqi officials involved in the relocation process is due in Europe this week to urge European governments to accept more former residents of Camp Ashraf as refugees, the US officials said.
MONEY MATTERS: Xi was to highlight projects such as a new high-speed railway between Belgrade and Budapest, as Serbia is entirely open to Chinese trade and investment Serbian President Aleksandar Vucic yesterday said that “Taiwan is China” as he made a speech welcoming Chinese President Xi Jinping (習近平) to Belgrade, state broadcaster Radio Television of Serbia (RTS) said. “We have a clear and simple position regarding Chinese territorial integrity,” he told a crowd outside the government offices while Xi applauded him. “Yes, Taiwan is China.” Xi landed in Belgrade on Tuesday night on the second leg of his European tour, and was greeted by Vucic and most government ministers. Xi had just completed a two-day trip to France, where he held talks with French President Emmanuel Macron as the
With the midday sun blazing, an experimental orange and white F-16 fighter jet launched with a familiar roar that is a hallmark of US airpower, but the aerial combat that followed was unlike any other: This F-16 was controlled by artificial intelligence (AI), not a human pilot, and riding in the front seat was US Secretary of the Air Force Frank Kendall. AI marks one of the biggest advances in military aviation since the introduction of stealth in the early 1990s, and the US Air Force has aggressively leaned in. Even though the technology is not fully developed, the service is planning
INTERNATIONAL PROBE: Australian and US authorities were helping coordinate the investigation of the case, which follows the 2015 murder of Australian surfers in Mexico Three bodies were found in Mexico’s Baja California state, the FBI said on Friday, days after two Australians and an American went missing during a surfing trip in an area hit by cartel violence. Authorities used a pulley system to hoist what appeared to be lifeless bodies covered in mud from a shaft on a cliff high above the Pacific. “We confirm there were three individuals found deceased in Santo Tomas, Baja California,” a statement from the FBI’s office in San Diego, California, said without providing the identities of the victims. Australian brothers Jake and Callum Robinson and their American friend Jack Carter
CUSTOMS DUTIES: France’s cognac industry was closely watching the talks, fearing that an anti-dumping investigation opened by China is retaliation for trade tensions French President Emmanuel Macron yesterday hosted Chinese President Xi Jinping (習近平) at one of his beloved childhood haunts in the Pyrenees, seeking to press a message to Beijing not to support Russia’s war against Ukraine and to accept fairer trade. The first day of Xi’s state visit to France, his first to Europe since 2019, saw respectful, but sometimes robust exchanges between the two men during a succession of talks on Monday. Macron, joined initially by EU Commission President Ursula von der Leyen, urged Xi not to allow the export of any technology that could be used by Russia in its invasion