REUTERS

BRUSSELS, Nov 22 (Reuters) – The European Union urged Iraq on Tuesday to allow time for the United Nations to determine the status of residents of a camp of Iranian dissidents that Baghdad has threatened to deport by the year-end.

The United Nations High Commissioner for Refugees (UNHCR) has been trying to arrange to interview the 3,400 residents of Camp Ashraf to see which of them qualifies for refugee status to permit their resettlement, but Iraq has not allowed this.

Members of the European Parliament called on EU foreign policy chief Catherine Ashton to step up pressure on Iraq to extend the year-end deadline it has set for the closure of the camp to allow the interview process to take place.
 
“The moment of truth is coming in this very difficult problem,” said Jean De Ruyt, a senior Belgian diplomat appointed by Ashton to work with the United Nations, Iraq and others to resolve the issue.
 
“Obviously the closure of the camp without a process of UNHCR to identify and organise the refugee status determination would bring a deadlock,” he said. “I hope that the Iraqi government will soon accept that this (process) takes place.”

De Ruyt said that if Iraq would not allow the interview process to take place at Ashraf itself, it was important that the residents were not “put in isolation or in jail”.
 
“To be sure that this process is organised in an orderly way the U.N. has to give some monitoring, has to reinforce its presence close to them,” he said.
 
De Ruyt told Reuters the European Union had “insisted very much” to Baghdad that the deadline for closure of Ashraf should be extended, but added, “Probably this will remain a red line for the Iraqis”.
 
Ashraf, some 65 km (40 miles) from Baghdad, is the base of the People's Mujahideen Organisation of Iran (PMOI), which mounted attacks on Iran before the U.S.-led removal of Iraqi leader Saddam Hussein in 2003.
 
The future of its residents became uncertain in 2009 after the United States, which lists the PMOI as a terrorist organisation, turned the camp over to the Iraqi government, which considers its residents a threat to security.
 
Rights group Amnesty International says they are subject to harassment by the Iraqi government and denied access to basic medicine. More than 30 residents were killed in a clash with Iraqi security forces in April.
 
Iraqi embassy counsellor Jwan Khioka told the European Parliament meeting that Iraq would stick to its plans to evacuate the camp, “and will transfer its residents to other camps in Iraq in preparation to deport them out of Iraq”.
 
Struan Stevenson, head of the European Parliament's Iraq delegation, said that the only place the residents could be deported to was Iran and added: “There is no question they would then face certain torture and execution.”
 
Esther de Lange, a Dutch member of the European Parliament and vice president of its delegation on Iraq relations, said it was time for the European Union, which removed the PMOI from its terrorism list in 2009, to put pressure on Iraq.
 
She said the EU could exert considerable leverage as Iraq's biggest development aid donor and a major trading partner.

“Please let us be a bit pro-active,” she told De Ruyt. “We should at least be working to extend this deadline.”
 
An adviser to the Iraqi government said this month Baghdad may extend the deadline — if a quick solution is found to resolve the issue of where the Ashraf residents should go.

De Ruyt said there had to be a U.N. process to determine the status of the residents first.
 
“For the moment nobody will welcome them because they are considered as a group which some countries consider as a terrorist group,” he said. “Only individual identification can bring a solution for the relocation of these people.”

(Reporting by David Brunnstrom)

 http://www.trust.org/alertnet/news/eu-urges-iraq-to-allow-more-time-for-ashraf-solution

UNITED PRESS INTERNATIONAL

LONDON, Nov. 22 (UPI) — “History can be a great teacher … if we bother to remember it.” But, when it comes to the fate of Iranian dissidents in Iraq in Camp Ashraf, it seems history cannot be a teacher simply because we don’t want to bother to remember.

The situation is strikingly similar to the Warsaw Ghetto during World War II. The government of Iraq wants to resettle the 3,400 Iranian dissidents in Camp Ashraf to another location in Iraq. This is tantamount to their massacre.

Unlike during World War II, the world now enjoys from the good offices of the United Nations. Would the United Nations succumb to Iraqi pressure and fall into its trap to agree with resettlement in Iraq?

The Ashraf residents, protected persons under the Fourth Geneva Convention, are members of the principal Iranian opposition movement, the People’s Mujahedin of Iran, which Iran considers enemy No. 1.

During the U.S.-led invasion of Iraq in 2003, Ashraf residents remained neutral. The following year, the United States gave written guarantees to all of them that, in return for a voluntary disarmament, the United States would protect them. But, in early 2009, the United States handed over responsibility for the security of the camp to Iraqi forces. Since then, the camp has been under a punishing blockade, with residents deprived of basic services, such as access to proper medical help.

Ashraf was the scene of two armed assaults by the Iraqi army in 2009 and last April, when 36 people, including eight women, were killed and more than 300 were wounded.

At the behest of Tehran, the Iraqi government led by Prime Minister Nouri al-Maliki set Dec. 31 as the deadline for the camp to close. Given the experience of the two raids, there are no grounds for believing that in December the world wouldn’t witness another massacre of defenseless Iranian refugees.

In September, the U.N. High Commissioner for Refugees, stating that the Iranian dissidents are asylum-seekers entitled to international protection, urged that Ashraf’s closure be delayed. Still, Baghdad insists that the December deadline be met. Iraq hasn’t the slightest interest in letting the UNHCR carry out its mission. Rather, by refusing to cooperate, it is creating the pretext to claim that no progress has been made and that the only solution is the forcible closure of the camp.

In a formal letter that the government of Iraq provided to a number of European institutions in November, a copy of which I obtained, Baghdad stated its objective is to evacuate the camp and transfer its residents to other camps in Iraq.

In several parts of that letter the government of Iraq unscrupulously pointed out this is done in view of its relationship with Iran and its interference in Iraqi affairs. Transferring Ashraf residents to other locations in Iraq is tantamount to issuing their death warrants.

Here are a few lessons I have learned in the past few years:

Assurances from Iraqi authorities are worthless and are actually more like ploys to deceive the international community. Six hours prior to the assault last April, the U.S. Embassy in Iraq received assurance from Maliki that there would be “no violence.” Lying to the U.N. representatives in Iraq is much easier than lying to the United States.

The Iraqi government is very good at lying and changing its version of events. During the April raid, despite videos showing Iraqi armed forces mowing the defenseless refugees down and armored vehicles rolling over them, Iraq’s official position was first that there were no casualties. When the corpses of dozens of refugees couldn’t be denied, Iraq said they had committed suicide.

If Ashraf residents are dispersed in small groups as the Iraqi government intends to do and the United Nations doesn’t oppose, without cameras and phones, Iraqi authorities would be able to torture and assassinate them in secret and claim they committed suicide.

Ashraf residents have shown utter flexibility to facilitate their relocation to third countries. While, legally they have all the right to stay in Iraq, they applied for asylum through the UNHCR. They even urged the UNHCR to start the process as quickly as possible and agreed to carry out individual interviews at a location under the full control of the UNHCR outside the parameters of the camp. Yet, the government of Iraq keeps pushing for one demand: Relocation in Iraq. The United Nations should notice the ominous objective of the Iraqi government.

The Iraqi plan is strikingly reminiscent of the “resettlement” plan of the Third Reich for Warsaw Ghetto residents. Ashraf residents would have to be suicidal to accept to be relocated in Iraq peacefully. Like the Warsaw Ghetto residents, those in Ashraf would have to resist any deportation order by any means they have.

The United Nations should show some encore and fend off Iraqi pressure by rejecting any notion of relocation inside of Iraq for Ashraf residents. Instead it should demand that that Iraq start to cooperate with the UNHCR and allow immediate interviewing of Ashraf residents to reaffirm their refugee status.

Meanwhile, the United States, European Union and United Nations should demand that the Dec. 31 deadline be extended. For the period of the final disposition and transferring Ashraf residents to third countries, U.N. monitors should be placed in Ashraf to guarantee their rights.

It is time for the United Nations to act as the guardian of international principles.

(David Amess, a Conservative Member of Parliament from the United Kingdom, is a leading member of the British Parliamentary Committee for Iran Freedom.) 

http://www.upi.com/Top_News/Analysis/Outside-View/2011/11/22/Outside-View-UN-should-reject-plan-to-relocate-Iranian-dissidents-in-Iraq/UPI-19781321962900

National Council of Resistance of Iran – Press Release

NCRI – According to reports from inside the Iranian regime, Maliki has promised to transfer residents of Camp Ashraf to other localities before the end of 2011. Based on a plan dictated to the Iraqi government by Ghassem Soleimani, commander of the terrorist Quds Force and Danaifar, the Iranian regime’s ambassador to Iraq, Iraqi forces should transfer the residents to al-Mothanna prison in Baghdad.

In 2009, when  Iraqi forces took 36 residents of Ashraf hostage they were kept in the same facility for a period of time (See Photo).

According to the plan, the Iraqi Prime Minister office’s that controls the facility would falsely introduce it to international bodies as “an airport in Baghdad” in order to avoid sensitivity.  The Iraqi government tries to get international acceptance or acquiescence vis-à-vis the forcible relocation of the residents before the end of 2011 in order to carry out its plan for  large scale crime against humanity with more ease.
 
Al-Mothanna was used to be an airport in the past century, but it has been turned into a torture center. Several international bodies have issued reports on crimes committed by the Iraqi government in al-Mothanna .

In a shocking story on this torture center dated April 28, 2010 the Associated Press confirmed receiving reports that prisoners held in al-Mothanna had “suffered rape, electric shock and severe beatings.”

In a statement issued on November 20, Mrs. Maryam Rajavi, the President-elect of the Iranian Resistance, equated the forced transfer of Ashraf residents to sending them to their deaths.  She said that Ashraf residents would never accept any relocation inside Iraq unless their protection in the new location is guaranteed by US or UN forces.  She added that silence and inaction vis-à-vis a forcible relocation of Ashraf residents paves the way for another crime against humanity which is predictable and any cooperation with regards to their forced relocation is complicity in the crime.
 
Dr. Alejo Vidal-Quadras, Vice-president of the European Parliament and president of the International Committee in Search of Justice stated today in a communiqué:  “Ashraf residents have shown all kinds of flexibility; they have agreed to the European Parliament’s plan to be transferred to third countries, despite their obvious right to remain in Ashraf, where they have lived for the past 25 years; they have filled individual asylum application forms.  But they are not at all prepared to be forcibly displaced inside Iraq and one should not expect them to volunteer to be slaughtered.  If they are forced to be displaced, they will have no other option but to resist. ”

Secretariat of the National Council of Resistance of Iran
November 22, 2011

Aswat al-Iraq 

AGENCE FRANCE PRESSE

PARIS — The leader of an exiled Iranian opposition movement claimed Sunday that moves to close a camp in Iraq housing thousands of her supporters were part of a plot by Tehran to have them killed.

Maryam Rajavi, France-based leader of the People’s Mujahedeen Organisation of Iran, said the Iraqi government’s plan to move Iranian exiles from Ashraf, north of Baghdad, had been secretly ordered by Iran’s Islamic government.

“Relocating residents of Ashraf inside Iraq is a crime against humanity and is a prelude to a grand massacre that has been devised by the Iranian theocratic fascist rulers and the government of Iraq,” she alleged.

“Forcible relocation of Ashraf residents is tantamount to sending them to their deaths and that is something they will never give in to,” she warned.

Rajavi heads both the National Council of Resistance of Iran, which claims to respresent the Iranian opposition, and its guerrilla wing, the PMOI, which has been on the US government’s list of terrorist groups since 1997.

While she and many of her supporters are based in France — and others are exiled around the world — the group’s biggest base is in Ashraf, where they are under pressure from the Iraqi government to pack their bags.

Talks are underway involving UN negotiators to find new homes for group members, who were housed in Iraq in the 1980s by the former regime of Saddam Hussein, but now find themselves unwelcome and pressured by Iraqi forces.

Baghdad wants to break up the group and send it to other camps around Iraq, but the PMOI — fearing expulsion to Iran — has demanded to be placed under the protection of US forces and resettled outside Iraq.

Rajavi said if Washington refused to do this “the only acceptable option for a relocation inside Iraq is the protection of Ashraf residents by UN Blue Helmet forces and a UN monitoring team stationed in the new location”.

Once international security was established for the exiles, they would be willing to negotiate their transfer to “third countries”, she said.

Last week, an Iraqi official told AFP that Baghdad plans to move the PMOI to another location, then for the United Nations to repatriate those with dual citizenship to their second countries and the rest to Iran or elsewhere.

Amid concerns that Iran would persecute returning members of a group it considers a dangerous terrorist outfit, the United Nations insists that repatriation to Iran would be only on a voluntary basis.

Ashraf residents have complained of increasing harassment by Iraqi forces since US-led forces ceased to protect it in January 2009, but the Baghdad government insists it is only enforcing its sovereignty.

http://www.google.com/hostednews/afp/article/ALeqM5jjfiQG5U7UYrfg5abaO4ESr5qRgg?docId=CNG.80d8747d6564cf516a7923d8afed3f80.821

National Council of Resistance of Iran – Press Release

The Iranian Resistance is in no way willing to discuss relocation of Ashraf residents inside Iraq unless their protection in the new location is officially guaranteed by the American forces or Blue Helmets of United Nations

Following the letter from Iraqi embassy dated 15 November to the protocol section of the European Parliament indicating that “the government of Iraq is committed to its decision to close Camp Ashraf by the end of 2011,” and that “the Iraqi government was left with no choice but to evacuate the Camp based on principle of sovereignty, and transfer its residents to other camps in Iraq,” Mrs. Maryam Rajavi, the President-elect of the Iranian Resistance said:

“Relocating residents of Ashraf inside Iraq, is a Crime against Humanity and is a prelude to a grand massacre that has been devised by the Iranian theocratic fascist rulers and the government of Iraq.  Forcible relocation of Ashraf residents is tantamount to sending them to their deaths and that is something they will never give in to.  As it was tested in the massacre of thirty thousand political prisoners in 1988, the regime in crisis situation would not accept anything but massacre of the People’s Mojahedin Organization of Iran (PMOI) Currently the bloody annihilation of the Ashraf residents is pursued under pretext of relocation.”

Mrs. Rajavi in July 28 reminded the responsibility of the United States regarding any bloodshed in Ashraf and the necessity of preventing it, and announced: “The Iranian Resistance is no longer prepared to discuss relocation of Ashraf residents inside Iraq in no way and at any cost unless the United States would declare that it will accept their protection utilizing American forces until resettlement to third countries.”

Mrs. Rajavi added “if the United States does not want to fulfil the written commitments it signed with every Ashraf resident to protect them until the final disposition, the only acceptable option for a relocation inside Iraq is the protection of Ashraf residents by the UN Blue Helmet forces and a UN monitoring team stationed in the new location until the last resident is transferred to third countries. Otherwise, relocation inside Iraq is not acceptable to anyone, particularly for the women in Ashraf.  They prefer to die in Ashraf rather than to be buried in a remote location away from international attention and scrutiny. At a time when the UNHCR had declared its readiness to establish the identity of Ashraf residents, it is not clear what conspiracy is at works that Maliki is preventing the UNHCR from carrying out its process. Undoubtedly this is linked to the seven-point agreement between the mullahs’ regime and Maliki’s government to suppress Ashraf which was publicly announced on October 23 by the clerical regime’s Foreign Ministry.”
 
Mrs. Rajavi urged the Secretary General of the United Nations, High commissioner for Refugees, High commissioner for Human Rights, and UNSG Representative for Iraq, as well as the U.S. President, Vice President, Secretary of State, and Secretary of Defense and the EU’s High Representative for Foreign Affairs and Security Policy and all the European leaders and Foreign Ministers of member states to fulfill their legal commitments according to Article 1 of third paragraph of UN charter, International Human Rights Declaration, and paragraphs 138, 139 from final document on Responsibility to Protect “RtoP” adopted by the U.N. on 2005 and according to resolutions 1438, 1500, 2001 of the U.N. Security Council which have determined duties and frameworks of the United Nations Assistance Mission in Iraq.
 
As stipulated by prominent international jurists, United States and the United Nations bear the responsibility to protect the residents of Ashraf and this is a legal obligation.
 
Silence and inaction vis-à-vis a forcible relocation of Ashraf residents pave the way for another great crime against humanity which is predictable and any cooperation with regards to their forced relocation is complicity in the crime.
 
On the negotiations that are underway between the U.N. and the Government of Iraq regarding Ashraf, Mrs. Rajavi reminded:

1. Closure of Ashraf and relocation of the residents inside Iraq, was the demand of Khamenei since the transfer of the security of Ashraf from the U.S. forces to the Government of Iraq. The officials of the Iranian regime have reiterated this on a number of occasions.

2. During his meeting with Khamenei in Tehran on January 5, 2009, Al-Maliki “committed to close the file on the People’s Mojahedin Organization of Iran (PMOI) in an immediate timetable.”  In addition “The Prime Minister of Iraq assured Khamenei that Iraq takes the responsibility for final closure of the opposition PMOI’s file in a timetable through international relations to transfer them to a third country in the most immediate time frame”  (Al-Zaman International).

3. On February 28, 2009, during a meeting with the President of Iraq in Tehran, Khamenei asked him and the Prime Minister of Iraq to implement the bilateral agreement for the expulsion of the PMOI from Iraq (Iranian state television).

4. On November 6, 2009, “The Prime Minister of Iraq and Iran’s Speaker of Parliament underscored the need for the expulsion of the PMOI from Iraq and the Iraqi side emphasized on their removal from Iraq” (Iranian state-run news agency, Mehr).

5. In his meeting with the U.S. officials in Baghdad on March 23, 2009, Al-Maliki provided the plan to displace Ashraf residents inside Iraq (Guardian, December 15, 2010).

6. The letter of the Embassy of Iraq to the European Parliament vividly shows that the end of 2011 deadline and the massacre of civilian and defenseless Ashraf residents have been dictated by the clerical regime. In this document it has been stipulated:

• “The existence of this organization however raises problems with Iran.”

• “The presence of this organization in Iraq threatens… the security of neighboring countries.”

• “Iraq wants to build peaceful relations with the neighboring countries (Iran).”

• “There are many complaints against the members of this organization… Large numbers of them are wanted on Iraqi and international arrest warrants.”

7. In this document, the Government of Iraq, in a brazen violation of international laws and the September 13 state of the United Nations High Commission for Refugees (UNHCR) that declared Ashraf residents as asylum-seekers under international protection, stipulates that it recognizes no legal status for Ashraf residents. It neither considers them as refugees, nor as protected persons under the Fourth Geneva Conventions,….What the Government of Iraq that on July 2009 and April 2011 massacred Ashraf residents, and its senior officials including the Prime Minister himself, who are under investigation by the Spanish court for crime against international community, war crime, and crime against humanity, would do with persons with “no status” who would be incarcerated in barracks in various parts of Iraq?
 
The Government that has reneged all of its commitments, written and oral assurances to the U.S. Government and the U.N. regarding humane treatment of Ashraf residents, is not trust worthy and its current assurances are simply for neutralizing international pressures and planned massacre according to the deadline. 

8. In lengthy negotiations between Ashraf residents and the US Government and UN officials, neither the Americans nor the UN were able to present the least security guarantee to Ashraf residents after a relocation in Iraq. Why should defenseless and innocent people be sent to unknown places far from international observers inside Iraq when the main international parties cannot guarantee their protection?
When the UN correctly does not allow its personnel to move about inside Iraq without total security guarantees, then with what logic can the PMOI members in Ashraf who are the main targets of the Iranian regime’s terrorism be left unprotected in Iraq?

9. The imposition of relocation is in contravention of the UN Secretary General’s remarks, stressed in paragraph 66 of his 7 July 2011 report to the UN Security Council in which hecalls upon “Member States to help to support and facilitate the implementation of any arrangement that is acceptable to the Government of Iraq and the camp residents”.

10. It is the Ashraf resident’s right and indeed red line to not surrender to the religious fascism ruling Iran and its despicable dictates, and to be assured of minimum security protection until such time that they are all transferred to third countries. They have shown the utmost flexibility in past months. In May, on my request, they accepted the European Parliament plan for transfer to third countries and forsook their right of residence in a place that has been their home for 25 years. In August, they accepted the UNHCR’s position despite the fact that the emergency situation in Ashraf and their 25 year history of refuge and residence in Iraq made them eligible for immediate affirmation of their refugee status. They then presented individual applications for refugee status to the UNHCR and declared their readiness for individual and private interviews.

11. Ashraf residents, in a practical solution to hasten the process of conducting the interviews in line with the UNHCR’s rules, suggested a complete partitioning of a section of Ashraf to UN control and under the UN flag for the interviews. They also declared their readiness to go to interviews at any place which the UNHCR deems appropriate on condition that to avoid past cases of kidnappings, hostage-taking, bombings, or assassinations, their security be guaranteed at the same level as is customary for UN personnel and without any intervention by Iraqi forces, with guarantees for the applicant’s return to Ashraf.

12. Simultaneously, the Iranian Resistance has exerted the utmost effort to transfer Ashraf residents, especially the ill and wounded, to outside Iraq and is continuing those efforts. We have conducted talks with many European and other countries in this regard and have borne extensive costs as well. Despite all this, the Iraqi government’s obstruction in the verification of the Ashraf residents’ identities by the UNHCR is still continuing which reflects that government’s ominous and murderous intentions to please the ruling religious dictatorship in Iran.

13. The Iraqi government tries to impose its plans on the US, UN and particularly on Mr. Kobler, the UN Secretary General’s new special representative to Iraq through a campaign of demonization and misinformation. It deceitfully tries to portray the plot to relocate inside Iraq as a peaceful plan. The Iraqi government has told the US and UN that if a great number of residents leave Ashraf by the end of the year, it might reconsider the deadline. At the same time it insists that before it allows the UNHCR to begin its legal duties it must present an acceptable timetable and plan for the transfer of Ashraf residents from Iraq. This is something that is not within the UNHCR’s capability or mandate. Everyone knows that the prerequisite for transfer and resettlement to third countries is affirmation of the individuals’ refugee status.

14. Therefore, what the Iraqi government has done until right out of the mullahs’ regime playbook and is nothing but setting the stage for another violent bloodbath. Therefore, while recalling the massacres of July 2009 and April 2011 in Ashraf which occurred in an international atmosphere of neglect of the Iranian Resistance’s repeated warnings, I demand the international community, particularly UN member states and  bodies and relevant authorities:

First, to categorically remove any forcible relocation of Ashraf residents inside Iraq from the agenda;

Second, the illegal and suppressive deadline of the end of 2011 which was invented from the start to shirk responsibility of the crimes committed on 8 April and to evade internationally called for investigations about this great crime, should be cancelled until the end of the UNHCR’s work and the transfer of all Ashraf residents to third countries;

Third, as the Iraqi government is not allowing the UNHCR to start the verification of identities of Ashraf residents and the process for affirmation of their refugee status on an individual basis, the only way left to prevent a massacre of unarmed and defenseless residents, is the general affirmation of the refugee status of Ashraf residents by the UNHCR until such time that subsequent individual interviews and final status of each application is completed;

Fourth, the protection of Ashraf residents with UN blue helmet forces and the stationing of UN observers until the transfer of the last person to a third country should be facilitated and guaranteed by the UN Security Council.

Secretariat of the National Council of Resistance of Iran 
November 20, 2011

AGENCE FRANCE-PRESSE

AGENCE FRANCE PRESSE

Supporters of residents of Camp Ashraf demonstrate in Geneva (AFP/File, Fabrice Coffrini

BAGHDAD — Negotiations are underway on relocating several thousand exiled Iranian opposition members from a camp north of Baghdad to another location in Iraq, officials said on Friday.

The European Union, meanwhile, urged further cooperation between UN negotiators and Iraqi officials in “difficult” efforts to close Camp Ashraf, which has hosted members of the People’s Mujahedeen Organisation of Iran (PMOI) since the 1980s.

Iraqi authorities have decided to close the camp by the end of 2011.

“The primary and overall responsibility to deal with the situation in Camp Ashraf lies with the government of Iraq within its sovereignty,” Martin Kobler, the UN secretary general’s special representative for Iraq, told AFP on Friday.

“In agreement with the government, we are in continuous contact with all parties, including the residents of the camp and the members of the international community to facilitate a peaceful and durable solution,” Kobler said.

“In this, I count on the full cooperation of the government of Iraq, the Camp Ashraf residents and the international community. International humanitarian standards and human rights have to be respected.”

“We are ready to assist,” Kobler said. “It is in everyone?s interest to find a peaceful solution.”

According to an Iraqi official, the object is to move the PMOI to another location, then for the United Nations to help repatriate those with dual citizenship to their second countries and the rest to Iran or another state.

The UN insists that repatriation to Iran will be on a voluntary basis.

“The EU is following very closely the current negotiations between the UN, UNHCR (UN Refugee Agency) and the government of Iraq about Camp Ashraf,” said a statement issued by the office of EU foreign policy chief Catherine Ashton.

“These negotiations are very difficult but we trust the UN negotiators to conduct them with the safety of the residents as their main preoccupation,” it added.

“The EU is also in regular contact with the Iraqi authorities and encourages them to be as flexible as possible with the modalities of the evacuation and to cooperate with UNHCR in order to facilitate the relocation of the residents,” the EU statement said.

Earlier in Brussels, the head of the European parliament’s delegation for relations with Iraq challenged the country’s determination to close the camp as “a virtual declaration of war on the UN and international community and a death warrant” for Ashraf residents.

“Ashraf residents … have accepted the European Parliament plan to be transferred to third countries. And we are working full power in this direction,” PMOI spokesman Shahriar Kia said by email.

“The problem is that the precondition for transfer to third countries is confirmation of the refugee status of residents by the UNHCR,” he said.

The UNHCR has said it is ready to “initiate its work by verifying the identity of Ashraf residents,” Kia said, but for “over two months now … we are waiting and the Iraqi government (has been) stonewalling the UNHCR work from the beginning.”

Camp Ashraf, which has become a mounting international problem, has been in the spotlight since a deadly April raid on the camp by Iraqi security forces.

The camp was set up when Iraq and Iran were at war in the 1980s by the PMOI and later came under US control until January 2009, when US forces transferred security for the camp to Iraq.

The PMOI has been on the US government terrorist list since 1997.

http://www.google.com/hostednews/afp/article/ALeqM5hkbU4agiiN6l51kpS1ZwqbE6hgHQ?docId=CNG.c08ef4ed8aae44f2aa1bee94410bd809.561

URGENT STATEMENT BY THE PRESIDENT OF THE EUROPEAN PARLIAMENT’S DELEGATION FOR RELATIONS WITH IRAQ

US, EU, UN’s Grave Responsibility to Prevent a Humanitarian Catastrophe in Ashraf

The Iraqi Embassy in Brussels has notified the European Parliament of the position of the Iraqi Government on the issue of Camp Ashraf in a 10-point official document. The document is disingenuous and illegal in its entirety and amounts to a virtual declaration of war on the UN and international community and a death warrant for the residents of Ashraf. It reiterates the intention to clear the camp by the end of the year, claims the 3400 residents of Ashraf are terrorists, denies that they have any status as refugees or protection under the Geneva Conventions and confirms that their continued presence is creating difficulties with neighbouring Iran. It clearly opposes attempts by the UNHCR to interview the residents and provide them with refugee status. 

The document stresses that “the Iraqi government is committed to its decision to close Camp Ashraf by the end of 2011,” and since resettlement “did not lead to any results because of either refusal by the inhabitants of the Camp to evacuate, or non-willingness of those States to receive them…, the Iraqi government was left with no choice but to evacuate the Camp based on the principle of sovereignty, and transfer its residents to other camps in Iraq and facilitate their travel outside Iraq during the period left from this year.” 

The document deliberately ignores the extensive efforts of the United Nations High Commissioner on Refugees (UNHCR), the United Nations Assistance Mission to Iraq (UNAMI), the European Union, and United States, who have bent over backwards to reach a peaceful resolution to the Ashraf issue involving the resettlement of its residents, but have been repeatedly blocked at every turn by the Iraqi Government. The document is a blatant effort to set the stage for the massacre of Ashraf residents, clearly at the behest of the Iranian regime. The UNHCR, European Parliament, US Congress, Amnesty International and other international bodies have repeatedly demanded in past months that the wholly unworkable deadline for closure of Ashraf by the end of 2011 should be extended until such time as refugee status of its residents could be affirmed by the UNHCR, enabling their safe transfer to third countries. 

The 10 point document clearly shows that this a policy dictated by the Iranian regime. It explicitly states that Iraq is committed to non-interference in the internal affairs of neighbouring states and “the existence of this Organization however raises problems with Iran.” In another part of the document it is stated, “The presence of this Organization in Iraq threatens… the security of neighbouring countries and gives an excuse to neighbouring countries [Iran] to interfere in the internal affairs of Iraq.” Article 10 of the document states, “Iraq, as a democratic and peaceful country, wants to build peaceful relations with the neighbouring countries [Iran]…” 

The document falsely states the reason for the closure of Ashraf to be “the Organization [PMOI] has already been classified by the international community as a terrorist organization” and “The presence of the Organization is prohibited under the Iraqi Constitution that prohibits the presence of any terrorist entity on Iraqi territory.”

The letter ludicrously says, “Iraq is dealing with the residents of the camp as individuals and in accordance with the human rights principles and rules of international law enshrined in the Universal Declaration of Human Rights and the International Covenant on Civil and Political Rights.” It appears as if the massacre of 47 residents, wounding of more than 1,000 others, the barbaric three-year siege of Ashraf, and the denial of medical facilities causing the painful death of sick and wounded patients, is according to the Iraqi Government an integral part of the principles of human rights enshrined  in international law. This is quite simply a joke! 

Since the letter leaves no doubt about the Iraqi government’s intentions for the massacre of Ashraf residents, I find it necessary to stress the following points: 

1. The international community, in particular the United States of America, the European Union, and the United Nations, must mobilise all their efforts to prevent another predictable bloodbath and a repeat of Srebrenica in Ashraf. The Iraqi government, whose hands are stained with the blood of unarmed and defenceless Iranian refugees, came to power with the help of the US and British and other Western governments. These countries, therefore, bear an important moral responsibility in preventing this looming catastrophe. 
2. The international community, in particular the United States of America and the European Union, must fully support the mission of the United Nations and the UNHCR for the affirmation of Ashraf residents’ refugee status and their resettlement to third countries. They must force the Iraqi government to postpone its deadline until the completion of this process. The United States in particular must prevent a great tragedy by precluding the Iraqi government from implementing the orders of the fascist dictatorship in Iran who seek the annihilation of Ashraf. If such a tragedy were to occur, the United States would bear the greatest responsibility. 
3. The European Union and its High Representative, Catherine Ashton, must adopt a clear position by condemning the Iraqi deadline and any forcible relocation of Ashraf residents inside Iraq. EU member states should immediately accept some of the Ashraf residents, particularly the ill and wounded, and persons who have been asylum seekers or who have family relations in European countries. This would be a tangible sign that the evacuation process had begun and would make any invasion of the camp by the Iraqi authorities more difficult to accomplish under the eyes of the world’s media. 
4. Any promises by the Iraqi Government are worthless. A few hours prior to the start of shooting in April 2011, the residents of Ashraf received a message via the US Embassy from the Iraqi Prime Minister giving assurances that there would be no violence. When Ashraf residents are dispersed in small groups, Iraqi forces and the terrorist Iranian Qods force will torture and assassinate them without the world being informed. In such circumstances if the world stands aside and allows matters to take their course without intervening, the resident of Ashraf, including more than 1000 women, face certain death.

Struan Stevenson, MEP

President of the European Parliament’s Delegation for Relations with Iraq

18 November 2011