THE INDEPENDENT

Who remembers the siege of Sarajevo? Today’s world leaders might have forgotten the early 1990s and the four-year encirclement of the capital of Bosnia and Herzegovina by Serbian forces.

Known as one of the longest sieges in modern warfare, it was also a bloodbath – thousands of lives were lost, many of them women and children. For Europe, Sarajevo was a humiliation because the massacre occurred at the heart of what some claimed was the most civilised continent on earth. The European Community was incapable of coming together to prevent the extermination of innocent Europeans.

A new Sarajevo is in the making today, and the question must be asked again: will the European Union stand by and watch? At Camp Ashraf in Iraq, 3,400 residents are encircled. Loud speakers have been placed around the town’s perimeter as part of a campaign of psychological intimidation. They blast out insults and threats in the early hours of the morning. The aggressors, Iraqi forces, are taking orders from the Iranian regime. They want Camp Ashraf cleared out and shut down because the residents are members of the People’s Mojahedin Organization of Iran (PMOI), the main Iranian opposition group.

No-one is allowed out of the Camp to receive medical attention. Foreign observers, including Euro MPs, US congressmen and journalists, are not allowed to enter. In the latest sign that the siege is tightening, Ashraf’s fuel supplies have been cut off. There have been no gasoline deliveries for almost a year, and very little diesel fuel and kerosene. Now that temperatures are dropping, Iraqi prime minister Nouri al-Maliki has ordered an end to deliveries of coal and wood.

Discomfort is sadly not the only hardship Camp Ashraf has had to endure.  In April this year Iraqi troops stormed the town and opened fire on anyone who tried to resist. Some 36 residents died, including eight women. More than 300 were wounded. “What happened on the 8^th of April is deplorable,” European Union High Representative Catherine Ashton told the European Parliament. “We need a strong united EU response,” she said. Iraq “has a duty to protect the human rights of Ashraf residents”.

The EU has increased diplomatic pressure on the Iraqi regime in recent months.  Some 180 Euro MPs signed a joint declaration in October warning that “the lives of 3,400 Iranian dissidents, including 1000 women, in Camp Ashraf, Iraq are in danger.” If Iraq was allowed to impose its December 31 closure deadline there could be a “large-scale massacre”, they warned. The precedents are not good. Another nine residents were killed in a separate attack in 2009. Dozens have been held and tortured.

The EU prides itself on its common, shared values, such as opposition to the death penalty. It actively exports these values to other nations. If Europe is serious in its desire to become a heavy-hitting diplomatic force it must show determination and oblige the Iraqi Government to abandon its year-end deadline. Europe must also respond to calls for Ashraf residents to be treated as asylum-seekers and resettled in countries where their lives are no longer at risk.

Europe is to a large extent in the driving seat. The US promised to protect Ashraf residents, but this promise did nothing to prevent the killings. And US troops are withdrawing from Iraq at the end of the year. What new atrocities can we expect when they are gone?

EU should weigh on the government of Iraq to revoke the deadline and UN monitors should be placed there so the United National High Commission for Refugees could do its work and be able to transfer the residents to third countries.

Camp Ashraf is of course a small piece in a much larger geopolitical puzzle. Tension between Iran, the US and its allies over Iran’s nuclear weapons programme is rising once again. But Europe must not lose sight of the fact that this is essentially a humanitarian crisis. Camp Ashraf is caught in the crossfire. Its inhabitants made their homes there 25 years ago. Europe has the opportunity to prevent a bloodbath. This must not go down in the history books as the Sarajevo of the Middle East.

http://blogs.independent.co.uk/2011/11/15/sarajavo-style-siege-at-refugee-camp-in-iraq/

McClatchy Newspapers

Since the Nov. 8, 2011, release of the International Atomic Energy Agency’s latest report about Iran’s nuclear program, Tehran has waged an all-out campaign to dismiss the IAEA’s findings, while implicitly threatening the world with a terrorist response.

“Iran will respond with full force to any aggression or even threats in a way that will demolish the aggressors from within,” Supreme Leader Ali Khamenei said.

The regime’s president, Mahmoud Ahmadinejad, said that the report’s findings were dictated by the United States, vowing Iran would not abandon its nuclear agenda.

But on Nov. 11, the IAEA showed letters and satellite imagery to United Nations member states as additional proof that the report is credible. Catherine Ashton, the European Union’s foreign policy chief, said the UN agency’s findings “strongly indicate the existence of a full-fledged nuclear weapons development program in Iran.”

Overwhelming evidence unveils a pattern stretching over years, of covert activities with a significant military component that cannot be explained away for any purpose other than building a nuclear warhead. Despite the IAEA’s definitive conclusion that “Iran has carried out activities relevant to the development of a nuclear explosive device,” the Iranian regime continues to claim that its nuclear program is for peaceful purposes.

In like manner, the world’s foremost state sponsor of terrorism denies all the evidence and claims that it is itself a victim of terrorism. Tehran is responsible for the murder of thousands of Americans since the mullahs came to power in 1979. The regime has supplied its proxies in Iraq with advanced EFP bombs that pierce through armored vehicles; it held American diplomats hostage in Iran for 444 days back in the 1980s; and it blew up the Marine barracks in Lebanon, killing hundreds of Americans, and Khobar Tower in Saudi Arabia, where 19 American servicemen were killed.

There is widespread speculation as to how fast Iran could obtain nuclear weapons. There may never be consensus on that because we don’t have a full picture of what else Tehran has been hiding. But one thing should be clear; the world cannot afford to wait another two years, because it might be just too late to act.

The question is, what can and should be done?

For three decades, Washington’s Iran policy has oscillated between engagement and threats of military action. Given the problematic nature of the latter, engagement has essentially held sway, giving the Iranian regime a golden opportunity to rapidly advance its quest for the bomb.

Eight years ago, the European Union began its negotiations with Iran to halt its uranium enrichment program. Three years ago, President Obama initiated his attempt to unclench the fist of Supreme Leader Ayatollah Khamenei.

As the IAEA report confirms, neither engagement nor sanctions have succeeded in halting Tehran’s nuclear drive. Instead of oscillating between these narrow options, Washington should focus on the Iranian opposition and its struggle to bring about a democratic and non-nuclear Iran.

Iran’s principal opposition movement, the Mujahedin-e Khalq (MEK), has been the source of much of the intelligence revealing the existence of multiple nuclear sites scattered across Iran. In 2002, the MEK reported the groundbreaking revelation of the uranium enrichment facility in Natanz. It was also the same group that released valuable intelligence about the regime’s Qods Force, whose notorious activities in Iraq incite violence and support the extremists.

And the MEK was instrumental in the 2009 uprisings in Iran. Its slogans of “death to dictator” and “death to [Supreme Leader Ali] Khamenei” became the predominant slogans, and most of those later hanged for their dissent were MEK supporters.

Little can be done to stop Iran from advancing its ambitious nuclear weapons program, unless we factor in the Iranian people and their organized opposition committed to replacing the regime with a democratic, secular, and non-nuclear republic.

Yet the biggest obstacle blocking the option of real democratic change, experts believe, remains the U.S. State Department’s inclusion of the MEK on its terrorist list. This has drawn the ire of senior members of the House Foreign Affairs Committee, the Select Committee on Intelligence and some 100 members of Congress who co-sponsored a bi-partisan resolution that calls for delisting the MEK immediately in accordance with a federal court order.

Tehran’s apologists argue that if the U.S. takes a tough approach to counter Iran’s nuclear threat, the Iranian people will rally behind the regime’s leaders, including the IRGC. Make no mistake; nothing can mobilize Iran’s population behind its ruthless rulers.

To the contrary, nothing has been more destructive than engagement packaged under different names. Iran’s people are not unified behind the mullahs’ nuclear program; they are united in their anger toward the regime’s rulers, and their deep-rooted desire for democracy and human rights.

It is time for the Obama Administration to wake up to the lessons of the Arab Spring. Dozens of former senior administration officials tasked with keeping America safe, believe that the U.S. must abandon its decades-old policy of engagement with the ruling dictatorship, and recalibrate its policies to accord with the realities of the region. A “Persian Spring” is imminent.

ABOUT THE WRITER

Alireza Jafarzadeh is the author of The Iran Threat: President Ahmadinejad and the Coming Nuclear Crisis (Palgrave; New York 2008). Jafarzadeh exposed the nuclear sites in Natanz and Arak in 2002. His revelations triggered the first IAEA inspections of the Iranian nuclear sites. He can be reached by email at: jafarzadeh@spcwashington.com.

McClatchy Newspapers did not subsidize the writing of this column; the opinions are those of the writer and do not necessarily represent the views of McClatchy Newspapers or its editors.

http://www.kansascity.com/2011/11/15/3267541/commentary-its-time-to-act-on.html

www.struanstevenson.com

Struan Stevenson, MEP, the President of the Delegation for Relations with Iraq in the European Parliament described the visit by H.E. Massoud Barzani, president of Iraq’s Kurdistan Region as constructive for EU strategic relations with Iraq, and particularly Iraqi Kurdistan and looked forward to these relations being expanded in future.

Struan Stevenson, MEP, the President of the Delegation for Relations with Iraq in the European Parliament discusses the humanitarian crisis with H.E. Massoud Barzani, president of Iraq's Kurdistan Region.

Struan Stevenson commended the political and economic progress of Iraqi Kurdistan under President Massoud Barzani’s leadership and asked for an expansion of economic and political cooperation of the EU and its Member States with Iraqi Kurdistan.

In a meeting with President Barzani and leading members of the KRG, a common desire for continuing progress and improvements in human rights inside Iraq was expressed, together with respect of the rights of ethnic minorities and different religions. To this end, Struan Stevenson said that Kurdistan acts as a shining example to the rest of Iraq in its peaceful environment and tolerance of minorities and different religions.

Commenting after the meeting in Brussels, Struan Stevenson said:

“President Barzani asked for mutual expansion of economic and political cooperation and underscored the need for expanding European investment in Kurdistan and Europe’s role in the democratic process and economic progress in Iraq.

“President Barzani also expressed his long-held view that the Iraqi Government’s current approach to the crisis in Camp Ashraf will not succeed and stressed the need for the tactics to change and in particular for the residents of Ashraf to be treated in a humanitarian way. I pointed out that the Ashraf residents must now be regarded as people of concern to the UN and as bona fide asylum seekers and political refugees in Iraq. I also stressed that the Iraqi government’s deadline for the closure of Ashraf was a hindrance to the work of UNHCR and should be revised without delay to enable the refugee status of the Ashraf residents to be confirmed and their re-settlement to third countries facilitated in line with the wishes of the EU, the UNHCR, the UN Special Envoy to Iraq, Amnesty International, and the US Congress. President Barzani said that he would do everything he could to help in order to find a peaceful resolution to this crisis.”

http://www.struanstevenson.com/media/news-release/kurdistans_president_strikes_a_positive_note_in_brussels/

THE EPOCH TIMES

UN envoy appointed to mediate dispute over Camp Ashraf

Iraq has declared that it will close Camp Ashraf by Dec. 31 and relocate—using force if necessary—the approximately 3,400 Iranian refugees who live there.

Demonstrators hold up petitions to President Barack Obama to protect the Iranian Ashraf refugee camp in Iraq during a freedom rally in front of the White House in Washington on Saturday, Oct. 22, 2011. (AP Photo/Jose Luis Magana)

Camp residents say they are willing to relocate to other countries but don’t want to be relocated within Iraq, claiming that the Iraqi government has become increasingly hostile.

The United Nations High Commissioner for Refugees (UNHRC) has received refugee applications from the exiles, but processing the claims and moving so many people will take time. An extension to the deadline has been requested.

The camp’s residents fear they will be persecuted if they remain in Iraq and face execution if they are deported to Iran.

European Union Foreign Affairs Representative Catherine Ashton has appointed Jean de Ruyt as a special envoy to advise on how the EU will respond to the issue.

At a press conference three days ago in Baghdad, an Iraqi adviser said they are sticking to their deadline. However, the Cabinet may consider moving the deadline if the UN comes up with a firm commitment to relocate the residents by a certain date.

De Ruyt said he will work with the Iraqi government to come up with a solution that is acceptable.

“The most pressing task is to pressure Iraq to remove this deadline to allow the UNHCR to do its job,” said Sharam Golestaneh with the Iran Democratic Association in Ottawa.

“In the next few days we are hoping that we can have much more activity on this issue. If we have learned one thing it’s that inaction leads to genocide and we can never let that happen again,” said Golestaneh, referring to two major raids by Iraqi forces on the camp in July 2009 and in April 2010 in which some residents were wounded and killed.

Golestaneh has concerns about the Dec. 31 deadline as it coincides with the withdrawal of the U.S. Army from Iraq. He notes that attacks on the camp have occurred even when U.S. troops were present.

“When the U.S. Army is not there and without a UN presence, what will happen to the people in the camp?” he said.

 “So we say to the Iraqi government, if you are really willing to solve this issue and you don’t want the people there, then you have to work with the UN to find a workable solution and don’t enforce an impractical deadline, so they [the UN] can get the job done.”

Displaced

Camp Ashraf began in 1986 as a camp for displaced Iranians who belonged to the People’s Mujahedeen Organization of Iran, an opposition group that wanted to see democracy established in Iran.

In the 1990s the group was labeled a terrorist organization—a brand that has endured despite removal from the list by the Council of European Union and support from the British and EU parliaments.

Located north of Baghdad, Camp Ashraf has become a thorn in the side of the Iraqi government, which is endeavoring to improve relations with neighboring Iran and views the residents as terrorists.

Forty-one members of Congress have written an urgent letter to the UN Secretary- General about the need to deploy blue helmet U.N. peacekeepers to Ashraf.

Golestaneh says his group is asking the U.N. to send monitors rather than a military presence to “minimize the risk of bloodshed” at the camp.

“If the U.N. is there rather than the U.S., [the Iraqi regime] can’t see it as someone trying to impose their will on Iraq,” he says.

When the United States turned over control of the camp to Iraq in June 2009, the government said it would treat the residents humanely in accordance with its domestic and international obligations.

http://www.theepochtimes.com/n2/world/iraq-wants-ashraf-residents-relocated-by-end-of-year-138325.html

UNITED PRESS INTERNATIONAL

WASHINGTON, Nov. 9 (UPI) — A report by the International Atomic Energy Agency released Tuesday provided the strongest evidence yet that Iran is close to developing nuclear weapons, including clandestine procurement of equipment and design information needed to make nuclear arms, high explosives testing and detonator development to set off a nuclear charge, computer modeling of a core of a nuclear warhead, and preparatory work for a nuclear weapons test — powerful evidence that refutes the regime’s specious claims that its nuclear program is peaceful.

Speaking on ABC’s “This Week,” former U.S. Secretary of State Condoleezza Rice said the United States should never take the option of military force off the table when it comes to dealing with Iran because the regime is clearly trying to obtain a nuclear weapon and has repressed its own people.

“The regime has absolutely no legitimacy left,” added Rice.

In all probability, however, any military campaign against Iran’s nuclear sites would ignite yet another Middle East conflict with neither clear winners nor a predictable endgame. For its part, Tehran has promised to inflict “heavy damage” on both Israel and the United States in retaliation for any such strikes. These aren’t idle threats.

Following revelations about its alleged plot to kill the Saudi ambassador to the United States in Washington, the Iranian regime has shown itself willing and capable to strike at the heart of the United States. The planned assassination was in the words of U.S. Secretary of State Hillary Clinton a “dangerous escalation” in that Iran chose to hit out at enemies beyond its usual targets like Iraq and Afghanistan.

Concrete change in Iran has to come from within. Dictatorships were toppled in Tunisia and Egypt after the people rose up against their oppressors. The lack of outside intervention fueled a sense of popular ownership of these changes. The popular rebellion threatening the Syrian regime is the latest sign that these movements cannot be prevented and will ultimately prevail.

The people of Iran, too, can bring down the ruling mullahs without the United States and its allies intervening militarily and risking lives. The uprising of 2009, while brutally repressed, displayed nationwide and overwhelming support for regime change.

Ironically, U.S. policy toward Iran has prevented that change from becoming reality because the best organized and largest Iranian opposition group, the Mujahedin-e Khalq has been shackled for the past 14 years.

In less than eight weeks, the government of Iraq plans to close Camp Ashraf, where thousands of MEK members have lived for more than 25 years. If Baghdad were allowed to make good on its threat to wipe the camp off the map by the end of this year, it will result in a humanitarian catastrophe.

A declaration signed by 180 members of the European Parliament in October warned that, “The lives of 3,400 Iranian dissidents, including 1,000 women, in Camp Ashraf, Iraq are in danger.” They added that Nouri al-Maliki’s arbitrary decision to close Ashraf could be used as a pretext for a large-scale massacre.

They were joined by 42 members of the House of Representatives, who urged U.N. Secretary-General Ban Ki-moon to use his wherewithal to “station a full-time monitoring team in Camp Ashraf,” urging the Iraqi government to “immediately lift the deadline to close down Camp Ashraf by the end of the year.”

Human rights groups, like Amnesty International, have also warned that Camp Ashraf residents “are at serious risk of severe human rights violations if the Iraqi government goes ahead with its plans to force the closure of the camp.”

The Iraqis have already demonstrated their willingness to use deadly force. Camp Ashraf has been attacked several times by Iraqi security forces causing the deaths of dozens of residents and injuries to others, rights groups say. On April 8, Iraqi forces brutally raided the camp, killing 36 residents, including eight women, and injuring more than 300. In July 2009, a similar attack took the lives of 11 residents.

Sadly, all this has happened under the nose of the U.S. military, which promised Camp Ashraf protection before turning over responsibility to Iraq in 2009. Iraqi forces used U.S. weapons in the latest raid. Afraid that their crimes will be revealed, Iraqi authorities have prevented the entry of U.S. and European lawmakers as well as journalists into Camp Ashraf.

Iraqi military incursions continue ahead of what could be the final push in December. Around 40 vehicles, both military and police, entered Camp Ashraf on Nov. 1. This was both a dry run of the definitive attack and part of the psychological warfare to which residents are routinely subjected. Hundreds of loud speakers have been set up around Camp Ashraf as part of preparations for the bloody showdown.

All this comes despite the designation of Camp Ashraf residents as protected persons under the Fourth Geneva Convention and despite the fact that U.S. forces are legally and morally bound to protect them. The United Nations has officially considered Ashraf residents as “asylum seekers,” calling on Iraq to extend the deadline. Amnesty International has called on the international community to resettle residents in third countries before it’s too late.

If the United States persists with its policy of malign neglect toward the unarmed residents of Camp Ashraf, those responsible will start the New Year with blood on their hands.

If, on the other hand, Washington forces Iraq to cancel its deadline and to facilitate asylum applications, it would prove the credibility of its promises and help saving the lives of members of Iran’s principal opposition movement which has the capability to help bring change to Iran by Iranians, obviating the need for foreign military intervention.

(Ali Safavi is president of Near East Policy Research, a policy analysis firm in Washington (www.neareastpolicy.com).

http://www.upi.com/Top_News/Analysis/Outside-View/2011/11/09/Outside-View-IAEA-report-on-Iran-poses-challenges-for-United-States

An Iraqi Deputy Prime Minister, Dr. Saleh al-Motlaq, warned Iraqi Prime Minister Nouri al-Maliki about another attack against Camp Ashraf by the Iraqi Forces and criticized him for setting a deadline for closure of Camp Ashraf, home to some 3400 Iranian dissidents in Iraq.

Mr. Motlaq who is also a leader of al-Iraqiya, the largest bloc in the Iraqi parliament,   said in an interview with Iraqi TV al-Sharqiya on Sunday (6 Nov. 2011) : “If Mr. Nouri al-Maliki once again attack Camp Ashraf and once again kill its residents, not only it will be committing an shameful act against the Iraqi people but it will cause a rift between us and the rest of the world.”

“Setting a deadline and saying that if you do not leave by the deadline, we will massacre you and will shed blood and cause a war with the rest of the world is not right,” he added.

Mr. Motlaq said: “My dignity as an Iraqi does not allow me to let the Iranian regime rule over me, form my government, run my economy, and kill my people.”

Interview with al-Shargiya TV, 6 Nov. 2011 – Dr. Saleh Motlaq, Iraqi Deputy Prime Minister and a leader of al-Iraqiya:

Is it right that we destroy our relationships with the world community because of the Iranian regime? I believe that if the Iraqi government and in particular Mr. Nouri al-Maliki once again attack Camp Ashraf, they would be committing a shameful act against the Iraqis and will cause a big disparity between us and the rest of the world.

Today, the entire world states that they [Camp Ashraf residents] are protected persons according to the Fourth Geneva conventions. It is not right to set a deadline and declare that if they do not leave by the deadline, we will massacre them and will shed blood that would cause a rift between us and the rest of the world.

The government must take into consideration the dignity of the Iraqi people, the Iraqi history and the Arab dignity. They [the camp residents] are our guests and we should no longer treat them they we have in the past.

If resolving the issue requires six more months or one more year, we must consider extending the deadline so we can resolve the issue in a humanitarian manner. I consider the Iranian people as our neighbors, friends, Muslims, and brothers and consider Iran a neighbor country and would want our relationships to enhance. But my opposition has and continues to be against the way the Iranian regime treats and interferes in Iraq. The Iranian regime in cooperation with the US formed the current government in Iraq and plays a role in Iraq and as an Iraqi, my dignity does not allow me to let the Iranian regime rule over me, form my government, run my economy, and kill my people.  I cannot tolerate its paramilitary units equipped with silencer weapons.

Is it right that we ruin our relationships with the rest of the world because of the Iranian regime? I believe that if the Iraqi government and in particular if Mr. Nouri al-Maliki once again attack Ashraf and once again kill its residents, not only it will be committing an shameful act against the Iraqi people but it will cause a rift between us and the rest of the world. Today, the entire world says that they [Camp Ashraf residents] are protected persons according to the Fourth Geneva conventions and we have so far reached good agreements with the [UN] High Commissioner for Refugees and it is registering each camp resident as a refugee and plans to transfer them to a third country. But this process needs some time. We cannot complete this process within two months. Setting a deadline and saying that if you do not leave by the deadline, we will massacre you and will shed blood and cause a war with the rest of the world is not right. This is not one person’s decision but a decision to be made by all Iraqis. And the person who wants to make such a decision should take into consideration the credibility and dignity of the Iraqi people and the Iraqi history and the Arab ethics.

They [Camp Ashraf residents] are our guests and we should no longer treat them like we have in the past. This was not our manner as Iraqis or as Arabs. If resolving this issue needs six more months or one more year, we should consider such a time in order to resolve the issue in a humanitarian manner.