Saleh Mutlak says the organization is a victim

Sawa Radio, 28 March 2009 – The Iraqi national security advisor, Muwaffaq al-Rubaie, has announced that Iraqi authorities plan to resettle Iranian opposition dissidents, the Mojahedin-e Khalq (PMOI/MEK), from Camp Ashraf in Diyala province to a remote area inside Iraq. At a news conference on Friday morning in Baghdad, al-Rubaie told reporters that the measure is intended to disconnect hundreds of the organization’s members from their militant leaders. Al-Rubaie added that Iraq has requested western countries to accept some of the members of this organization in Iraq, who number up to 3,418 people.
On the other hand, Saleh Mutlak, leader of the Iraqi National Dialogue Front, described the PMOI as a victim. In a telephone interview with Sawa Radio, he said: The PMOI has today become a victim of the Iraqi government and the Iranian regime, and perhaps the international community and specifically the US, which has classified the organization as a terrorist group, while several international courts have issued verdicts calling for the removal of the terror label against the PMOI.
Mutlak added that dealing with the dissident Iranian organization must not resemble treatment of the Kurdish Workers’ Party (PKK) for two reasons. First, the PKK is armed while the PMOI is not. Second, Mutlak added, Turkey is a friendly country and plays a positive role in Iraq, while Iran is a government which has played a negative role in Iraq for a long time, especially during and after the invasion of Iraq. The PMOI is unarmed.