of the Mojahedin-e Khalq at Camp Ashraf as refugees.
The foreign ministers were gathering in Brussels for a meeting December 1 after the Iran Times went to press.
Agence France Presse (AFP) quoted EU sources as saying that Ashton would be asking each of the 27 member states to tell her how many people from the group they would be willing to accept. Others, the sources said, would go to Canada, Australia and the United States.
AFP said the two largest EU member states—France and Germany—were both reluctant to take any Mojahedin members.
There are about 3,400 residents left at Camp Ashraf. Without saying the source of its numbers, AFP said 800 to 900 of those hold dual citizenship and can easily go to the other countries where they hold citizenship. It said another 1,000 are ready to return to Iran. That would leave only around 1,500 to be scattered as refugees.
The EU source told AFP, “The residents are not all members of the Mojahedin,” saying the group “is using the people in the camp as hostages to their cause. Camp Ashraf is like a military camp. People are not free to move around or to speak.”
The source said about 100 camp leaders have “a heavy past” and could face trial for attacks launched inside Iran or for taking part in military offensives against the Iraqi Kurds.
The Mojahedin agreed several weeks ago to allow all its members to register as refugees with the UN High Commissioner for Refugees (UNHCR), who would then be allowed to interview the members individually. While the source of the AFP numbers was not given, the only good source would be the UNHCR interviews.
