The State Department appears to be trying to help the Iraqi government with what is a difficult foreign and domestic issue.
A State Department official briefed reporters last Thursday, explaining how the plan calls for all the residents at Camp Ashraf to be moved to another location within Iraq, far from the border with Iran. The idea is for the Mojahedin members to live there while efforts are made to find other countries that will accept the Mojahedin members as refugees.
Such a move was announced by the Iraqi government a year ago. Iraqi officials then said a move far from Iran’s borders would make the Islamic Republic happier. It wasn’t known if the Iraqis were merely hoping such a move would quiet the Iranian regime, or if Iran had actually said it would be pleased by such a move.
The Mojahedin have not been cooperative over the Iraqi proposal. The idea may be that the move will be more acceptable to the group now that the United States is making it.
The United States is already vacating many of its bases, so the Mojahedin-e Khalq could be moved onto one of those bases. The Iraqis want to put the group at some site in Iraq’s Western desert where it would be far from any population center.
Iraqis living around Camp Ashraf reportedly want the land.
The United States has been trying to induce other countries to accept the Mojahedin as refugees since 2003 and has had no success whatsoever. There is little likelihood of that changing. That means the group could find a new location in the western desert to be permanent, even though both Iraq last year and the American briefer last week described the relocation as temporary.
The Iraqi government last year also proposed separating the Mojahedin leadership from the bulk of the 3,400 members, presumably because they believe that the leadership is making the membership more hard-nosed. The US briefer did not mention that aspect.
The UN High Commission for Refugees (UNHCR) recently said that it can only help out if each member of the group signs a pledge disavowing violence, but that the members have refused to do so despite the organization’s proclamation a decade ago that it was disavowing violence.
The US briefer said the new site would be “chosen and maintained and operated” by the Iraqi government. He said the United States would work with all parties to guarantee the safety of the group’s members if they agree to the move.