Report: US bids to resettle MKO members in Romania

The reports indicate that Washington seeks to resettle Mujahedin-e Khalq members in Romania, which “will prove quite a headache both to Romania proper and the neighbouring countries.”

“when the US State Secretary John Kerry met with his Romanian counterpart Titus Corlaţean in Brussels in December, they took up the issue of moving the Mujahedin in question to Romania, according to some reports,”Ilya Kharlamov wrote Friday in an article titled “US to flood Romania with terrorists” which was published on the Voice of Russia website.

Earlier in March 2013, Albanian Prime Minister made the decision to offer asylum to 210 members of the terrorist MKO held in Iraq after a meeting with US Department of State Assistant Secretary, UN envoy in Iraq, and other officials.

Although MKO soon turned down the offer and demanded instead for the resettlement in the United States or relocation back to Camp Ashraf, after some two months, the first batch of MKO members followed by the second and the third groups were moved to Albania.

Kharlamov went on to describe the MKO as individuals “who opposed the rule of the Shah of Iran” and “started their resistance in the middle of the 1960s on a romantic idea of building a class-free socialist society, but as time went on, the idea degenerated into mass-scale terrorist attacks and acts of sabotage.”

Referring to MKO’s killing of hundreds of thousands of people in Iran, Kharlamov added, “the impressive ‘record of service’ proved no hindrance to the EU and US recent decision to strike Mujahedin-e Khalq off their list of terrorist organizations.” “The EU and the US obviously proceeded from the assumption that "the enemy of my enemy is my friend", although the two saw Mujahedin-e Khalq as terrorists just a short while ago.”

“If the Romanian leaders have certain doubts, and they will certainly question the correctness of the decision, then they should stiffly oppose the move. The organization acts against Iran, Tehran sees it as terrorist, Mujahedin-e Khalq is known for numerous terrorist attacks and life attempts. Besides, the US plan is at variance with the recent trend towards improving relations between Washington and Tehran,” he went on to cite a Russian expert in Oriental Studies Boris Dolgov as saying.

The Voice of Russia correspondent Ilya Kharlamov emphasized that the US attempts have “proved futile, even though Romania heavily depends on Washington.” “The US sees Romania as an important nation in terms of its geopolitical interests, and has been patronizing Bucharest throughout the post-Soviet period. But the pay Washington has demanded seems clearly excessive.”

He also cited another expert Sergei Demidenko as saying that “action on the US plan is fraught with danger, but is highly improbable.”

“A transfer of a large group of people, drilled ideologically and militarily, to an unstable European area will clearly add no quiet to the area,” Demidenko explained.

Kharlamov concluded that “whether to accept the members of an organization, placed on a par with Taliban and Al-Qaeda, or not depends wholly on the Romanian government, which will likewise be solely responsible for its decision.” “The authorities of the neighbouring Ukraine will also have food for thought. The well-trained fighters may prove effective as a force to change the government or at least rock the unstable situation, for they are not used to sitting idly.”