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Iran Group MEK's Delisting Doesn't Signal US Approval

The US removed a controversial Iranian opposition group from its list of terrorist organizations, Barbara Slavin and Laura Rozen report for Al-Monitor, after most of its members decamped from their base near Baghdad. The move does not mean the US condones the Mujahedin-e-Khalq, which has assassinated Americans and Iranians.
A woman holds a picture of Iranian resistance leader Massoud Rajavi as supporters of the main Iranian opposition, the Mujahedin-e Khalq, protest against Iranian President Mahmoud Ahmadinejad's visit to the U.N. outside the U.N. headquarters in New York September 22, 2011. REUTERS/Eduardo Munoz (UNITED STATES - Tags: POLITICS)

Secretary of State Hillary Clinton has decided to take a controversial Iranian opposition group, the Mujahedin-e-Khalq (MEK), off the State Department’s list of terrorist organizations as compensation for the group’s almost complete evacuation of its historic base in Iraq, a US official told Al-Monitor on Friday.

The official, speaking to Al-Monitor on condition of anonymity, said the decision — first reported by CNN’s Elise Labott — reflected the fact that all but 200 MEK members have now relocated from Camp Ashraf north of Baghdad to a facility near Baghdad airport, where they will be processed for resettlement out of Iraq by the UN High Commissioner for Refugees.

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