FM Blast Jordan Support for Anti-Iran Terrorist Group
16:38 | 2008-07-01Foriegn Policy
http://english.farsnews.com/newstext.php?nn=8704111144

TEHRAN (FNA)- Iran's Foreign Ministry summoned Jordan's ambassador to Tehran
over his country's support for the anti-Islamic Republic terrorist group,
the Mojahedin-e Khalq Organization (MKO).

The Foreign Ministry's Department for Middle East Affairs summoned Jordanian
envoy Ahmad Jalal al-Meflah on Monday and expressed Tehran's disapproval
over the attendance of 12 Jordanian parliamentarians at a rally in Paris on
Sunday.

A total of thirty-three Jordanian officials attended the rally organized by
the Mojahedin-e Khalq Organization (MKO). The demonstration was directed at
pressuring the European Union into removing the group from its list of
terrorist groups.

Al-Meflah, for his part, said Jordanian King Abdullah II bin al-Hussein will
not recognize the terrorist group. He added that Tehran's concerns will,
however, be conveyed to Amman.

The Iraqi government has ordered the MKO to lay down its weapons and leave
the country.

The MKO is regarded as a terrorist group by West and much of the
international community.

The MKO is on the European Union's list of terrorist organizations subject
to an EU-wide assets freeze. The group benefits from American support, while
it has ironically been designated by the US government as a foreign
terrorist organization.

Formed in the 1960s in opposition to the rule of the US-backed Shah, the MKO
took part in the 1979 Islamic revolution but then took up arms against the
Islamic republic.

Leaders of the group have been fighting to shed its terrorist tag after a
series of bloody anti-Western attacks in the 1970s, and nearly 30 years of
violent struggle against the Islamic Republic of Iran.

It killed several of Iran's new leaders in the early years after the
revolution and moved to Iraq in the early 1980s, where it carried out
terrorist acts against the Iranian people until the United States invaded in
2003.

The MKO backed Iraqi dictator Saddam Hussein in the 1980-1988 imposed war on
Iran.