U.S. will be responsible for any further bloodshed in Ashraf
U.S. will be responsible for any further bloodshed in Ashraf;U.S. will be responsible for any further bloodshed in Ashraf;Iranian Resistance is not ready whatsoever to negotiate about relocation of Ashraf residents inside Iraq
Following the Hearing session of the House of Representatives’ Foreign Affairs Subcommittee on the Middle East and South Asia on Wednesday July 27, Maryam Rajavi announced: “As Congressman Dana Rohrabacher reminded senior officials of the U.S. State Department, the United States will be responsible for any bloodshed in Ashraf from now on. “Moreover, as Congressman Ted Poe pointed out, the House of Representatives’ Foreign Affairs Committee of the U.S. House of Representatives unanimously opposes relocation of Ashraf residents inside Iraq and this amendment will turn into legislation after it is presented to the Congress and Senate and has been passed.
“In this hearing session, Congressman Ted Poe declared relocation inside Iraq is the joint desire of Iranian and Iraqi regimes.” Maryam Rajavi added: “Therefore, the Iranian Resistance is not ready by any means, at any price and at any place to negotiate about relocation of Ashraf residents inside Iraq, unless the U.S. government announces it would undertake their protection by U.S. forces until resettlement in third countries.” A number of Ashraf residents’ relatives also took part in the July 27th hearing session convened with the presence of Jeffrey Feltman, Assistant Secretary of State for Near Eastern Affairs, and Michael Posner, Assistant Secretary of State for Human Rights, as witnesses. While protesting at the State Department’s inaction about 300 loudspeakers, especially after previous Congress notifications to the State Department in this regard, Congressman Ted Poe said: “Since we last talked, Iraqi government has invaded Camp Ashraf and murdered 34 people…One of the reasons they use for an excuse is the fact that the State Department continues to list the MEK as a Foreign Terrorist Organization…. When I went and visited with Mr. Maliki for almost two hours with other members of this committee, and wanted to go see the residents of Camp Ashraf and get their side of the story, we were of course denied that. He didn’t want us to hear the other side, possibly the truth. He said: one reason that the people in Camp Ashraf were treated the way they are treated by Iraq is because the State Department continues to designate them as a foreign terrorist organization.”Jeffrey Feltman, while acknowledging the fact that they would face another looming disaster in Camp Ashraf, said: “We have condemned what happened in April. You surely saw the condemnations. But what we are trying to do now is to prevent more such incidents. What we are doing now is trying to negotiate with the leadership and the residents at Camp Ashraf about security arrangements that would protect the 3,400 individuals that are there, abide by their demand that they not be separated from their leadership.”Congressman Rohrabacher said in the session: “Up until this time, up until the time before the massacre, we had made a pledge to the people in Camp Ashraf that we were going to protect them from such things as massacres from the Iraqis…and I would hope that this isn’t like the Dutch did in down in the Balkans… the State Dept. has been dragging its feet for years on, on re-designating this group. We have designated them a terrorist organization in order to curry favor with the mullah dictatorship in Iran and has resulted in a massacre of 35 innocent people who are unarmed and the wounding of hundreds of others. At the very least, the State Dept. should be working overnight, and tomorrow issue the fact that they are no longer on the terrorist list because that’s the problem…, let me just for the record state that the representative for the UN High Commissioner on Refugees at the United States was in my office two weeks ago and specifically told me that the terrorist designation by the US of the people of Camp Ashraf was the main stumbling block of getting these people relocated and so that’s on the record for you now… whoever’s made the decision that were not going to take them off the terrorist list, and probably due to whoever that person is, wanting to curry some kind of favor with the mullah dictatorship, is playing with the lives of unarmed people who have already gone through a massacre. And I just want you to go back to the State Department and let them know that there is another massacre, it’s you guys who are responsible for the death of these unarmed people, I mean it is easier to take them off the terrorist list … This is something you can do and you’re not doing it.”Congressman Bred Sherman said that the Resolution 231, which has been introduced by him and the Chairwoman of Foreign Affairs Committee, “urges the United States to do everything possible to ensure the physical security and protection of Camp Ashraf residents noting that as recently as April 8 Iraqi forces initiated force against the residents of that camp and apparently some 34 residents died, 300 were wounded. And I would also point out that the Iraqi ambassador trying to disclaim any responsibility for this points that the MEK happens to be listed on the terrorist list. We need to protect the people of Camp Ashraf.”
Secretariat of the National Council of Resistance of Iran
July 28, 2011
