Albania’s Interior Ministry says 30 other members of the Mujahedeen-e-Khalq arrived in Albania last week
TIRANA, June 1 – Albania has opened its doors to more exiles from an Iranian opposition group in Iraq as part of a relocation process worked out with the U.S. and the U.N.
The plan is aimed at defusing an explosive dispute left over from the Iran-Iraq war of the 1980s and the U.S.-led ousting of the regime of Saddam Hussein in Iraq.
Albania’s Interior Ministry says 30 members of the Mujahedeen-e-Khalq arrived in Albania late Wednesday. Fourteen were accepted earlier. That leaves 166 more exiled Iranians that Albanian has agreed to accept.
The ministry on Tuesday considered the move “a response of the Albanian government to the request from the U.S. government.”
In mid-May, 14 members of the Mujahedeen-e-Khalq, or MEK, were taken to Albania, in response to a request from the United States and the United Nations on their relocation in an effort toward defusing an explosive dispute left over from the Iran-Iraq war of the 1980s and the U.S.-led ousting of the regime of Saddam Hussein.
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.
Ministry spokesman Leonard Olli said Tuesday that the refugees are being sheltered at an asylum-seekers center near the capital, Tirana, while awaiting asylum procedures and the transfer to apartments.
Their relocation to Albania is done through the UNHCR, according to a ministry statement, adding that the second group arrived last Friday and other groups were expected “in the next days.”
The first group has already started lessons on the Albanian language.
“The government has taken all the measures for their accommodation in appropriate apartments ensuring their transfer from the center to their shelters within a short time and also their treatment in line with all (international) standards,” said the statement.
The MEK, or the People’s Mujahedeen of Iran, opposes Tehran’s clerical regime with assassinations and bombings there until renouncing violence in 2001.
After Iraqi dictator Saddam Hussein, who supported them, was deposed in 2003, the new Baghdad government considers the MEK a terrorist group and wants its members out of the country.
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 U.S. took the MEK off its list of terror groups in September 2012, raising a stiff protest from Iran.
Last year, about 3,000 MEK exiles were moved from their decades-long enclave at Camp Ashraf 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.
The MEK exiles have come under fire from armed Iraqis who demand their expulsion. 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.
In Washington, U.S. Department of State spokesman Jen Psaki said that “The United States commends the Government of Albania’s generous offer to accept up to 210 former Camp Hurriya residents. This marks the second in a series of planned moves to relocate Camp Hurriya residents to Albania. Albania continues to be a strong partner of the United States in contributing to peace and stability in Iraq.”
