| Ambassador Daniel Fried on Thursday briefed reporters in Washington on the situation at Camp Ashraf and future plans for dealing with MKO members including their transfer to former Camp Liberty which is located northeast of Baghdad International Airport. |
According to Habilian Association database, the special adviser for Camp Ashraf in Iraq emphasized that the US has “turned over Camp Liberty to the Iraqi military” and now Iraqi forces exert direct control over the camp.
He noted that the residents of Camp Ashraf will be moved from Camp Ashraf to “former Camp Liberty, which used to be a U.S. military facility.”
Daniel Fried also stressed that Camp Liberty “will be an Iraqi facility", adding that it’s not going to be a kind of independent, self-governed, autonomous, extraterritorial facility, which is what Camp Ashraf has been for many years.”
The Ambassador told the reporters that MKO members will not stay in Iraq for a long period of time and UNHCR will begin “immediately” to process these people for refugee status.
He also referred to the return of hundreds of MKO members to Iran over the years and stated that “there is no evidence that they have been mistreated by the Iranians.”
Thus, MKO members won't outstay their welcome at former Camp Liberty as they did at Ashraf and they will leave Iraq in the near future, and Iraqis will be relieved to see Mujahedin-e Khalq with such a history of violent assassination of 25000 Iraqis expelled from their soil.
The relocation of the MKO members followed by an agreement signed last week by Special Representative of the Secretary-General and head of the UN Assistance Mission for Iraq (UNAMI) Martin Kobler and National Security Advisor to the Prime Minister of Iraq, Faleh Fayad. It established that the Iraqi government will relocate the residents of Camp Ashraf, to a temporary transit location where the UN High Commissioner for Refugees (UNHCR) will start a process of refugee status determination, a necessary first step for their resettlement outside Iraq.