Reuters, Strasbourg, 27 October 2011 – The evacuation of Camp Ashraf, Iraq, home to some 3,400 Iranian dissidents, should be postponed to avoid a massacre, said Wednesday the president of the Delegation of European Parliament for Relations with Iraq.
The Iraqi government, which requested the closure of the camp, located 65 km northeast of Baghdad, by the end of the year, is about to commit a massacre for the sake of Iran, said Struan Stevenson, a British Conservative, during a press conference in Strasbourg.
“A battle is preparing around Camp Ashraf to physically remove the occupants,” he said, citing an anonymous source within the United Nations.
Iraqi Prime Minister Nuri al-Maliki, who refuses to cooperate with the UN to hold talks prior to the granting of refugee status, must allow the refugees in Ashraf to be welcomed in Europe or the United States .
“These talks have not started. They are deliberately blocked,” said Struan Stevenson.
An operation on April 8 against Camp Ashraf by the Iraqi army has killed 34 people, according to the UN, and 345 injured according to the People’s Mojahedin Organization of Iran (PMOI), opponents of the regime Tehran.
A statement of the European Parliament calling on the United States and the Security Council of the United Nations to impose a moratorium in Baghdad to close the camp, had collected 120 signatures Wednesday from all political groups.
(Gilbert Reilhac, edited by Patrick Vignal)
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