Albania shelters first group of Iranian exiles

TIRANA, May 19 – The first exiles from an Iranian opposition group moved toAlbaniafrom a camp near Baghdad as part of a relocation process, the United Nations said, in what is considered a step toward defusing an explosive dispute left over from the Iran-Iraq war of the 1980s and the U.S.-led ousting of the regime ofSaddam Hussein.
U.N. envoy inIraq, Martin Kobler, said 14 members of the Mujahedeen-e-Khalq arrived in Albania late Wednesday, the first of 210 set to travel to new homes in Albania.
TheMEK, or the People’s Mujahedeen ofIran, opposes Tehran’s clerical regime. It carried out assassinations and bombings in Iran until renouncing violence in 2001. Several thousand of its members were given sanctuary in Iraq by dictator Saddam Hussein, who was deposed in 2003.
Since then, the MEK refugees have been a stubborn, anachronistic thorn in the side ofIraqand the United States, even after the U.S. turned over responsibility for Camp Ashraf, housing the remnants of the militant group, to the Iraqi government in 2009.
Albanian Interior Minister Flamur Noka pledged to quickly complete arrangements to resettle the 14. He told the Associated Press news agency that they will get the refugee status immediately and then receive residence permits and proper documentation.
“They will be treated like every other Albanian citizen,” he said, though “for the moment they will have the status of the refugee,” meaning they will not be free to travel outside the country.
On Saturday he also visited the camp and pledged full security to the MEK members. He also said the authorities are preparing a facility where they will live.
Then-U.S. Secretary of State Hillary Clinton negotiated the agreement with Albania and the U.N. to take in the 210 MEK exiles late last year.
The U.S. took the MEK off its list of terror groups in September 2012, raising a stiff protest from Iran, charging that the U.S. move was “a violation of America’s legal and international obligations” that could threaten U.S. interests.
But the move of the refugees to Albania has allegedly angered Tehran, who warned Albania the relocation of the MEK members will threaten the country’s national security, according to an Iranian legislator on Sunday.
Member of the Presiding Board of the Iranian Parliament Seyed Baqer Hosseini warned Tirana against the negative outcomes of the MKO members’ presence in the country, and asked, “How could the MKO, who had no pity for their own fellow countrymen, conduct a peaceful coexistence with foreign citizens?”
He added, “The government of Albania should avoid repeating the same mistake that other countries have made with regard to the hosting of the MKO members because these people are dangerous both for that country’s national security and the entire region.”
The MEK fought alongside Saddam’s forces in the 1980s Iraq-Iran war, and its members fear persecution and death if they return to Iran.
The Shiite-led government in Baghdad that replaced Saddam’s regime, and which is bolstering its ties with Iran, considers the MEK a terrorist group andwants its members out of the country.
In one incident, seven people were killed in a rocket attack on the MEK camp in February. Later, the head of a Shiite militant group threatened to carry out more attacks on the camp if the MEK members refused to leave.
Last year about 3,000 MEK exiles were moved from their decades-long enclave in northeastern Iraq to a refugee camp outside Baghdad at a former U.S. military base, part of an effort to ensure their peaceful departure from Iraq. However, while Albania is taking in a small group, it remains unclear where the rest of the MEK members might go, leaving a clear potential for further violence.
The U.S. government praised Albania for accepting to host the MEK members, urging the Iranian opposition group to cooperate fully with the relocation process.
“The relocation of Camp Hurriya residents outside of Iraq is vital to their safety and security. It is the responsibility of the MEK leadership to facilitate for the residents of Camp Hurriya free and unfettered access to U.N. human rights monitors,” said a statement by the U.S. State Department.