US thanks Albania for MKO asylum offer

The United States has welcomed an offer from the NATO member Albania to grant asylum to members of the anti-Iranian terrorist group Mujahedin-e Khalq Organization (MKO).

State Department Spokeswoman Victoria Nuland on Monday thanked Albanian Prime Minister Sali Berisha for his "humanitarian gesture” and called on the MKO to accept Tirana’s "generous” offer immediately.

Berisha announced the decision in a statement on Saturday, saying the Albanian government is ready to accommodate in Tirana 210 members of the MKO group “for humanitarian reasons.”

Political experts, however, warn that Albania’s decision to grant asylum to the MKO members has nothing to do with humanitarian concerns, and will give the terrorists a safe haven where they can work with former members of the Kosovo Liberation Army (KLA).

The KLA is notorious as a murderous group of drug runners and terrorists who receive training from NATO and the United States for operations around the world.

The United States removed the Mujahedin-e Khalq Organization from its terror list On September 28, 2012, following similar moves by Britain and the European Union in 2008 and 2009.

MKO terrorists fled to Iraq in the 1980s and had the support of Iraq's executed dictator Saddam Hussein, who allowed them to set up a military base called Camp Ashraf in Diyala Province, near the Iranian border.

MKO members currently live at Camp Liberty, a former US military camp near Baghdad Airport, after their relocation from Camp Ashraf under growing pressure from the Iraqi government and people for the terrorist group to leave the country.

 

http://www.presstv.ir/detail/2013/03/19/294370/us-thanks-albania-for-mko-asylum-offer/