MOJAHEDEEN KHALQ ADDED TO EU’S TERRORIST LIST
BERLIN 3 May (IPS) The Iraq-based, supported and financed Organisation of Mojahedeen Khalq (MKO), an outlawed Iranian group fighting the Iranian regime was placed Friday on the European Union’s list of banned "terrorist" groups, EU diplomats said.
An EU statement confirmed that the list of "persons, groups and entities involved in terrorist acts" whose assets are to be frozen under United Nations rules had been extended, and includes the MKO as well as the Turkish Kurdish separatist organisation PKK and the Spanish separatist group ETA.
Diplomats said following just ended talks in Washington between President George W. Bush with Spanish Prime Minister, Jose Maria Ansar, the present Chairman of the 15-members European Union, Xavier Solana, the organisation’s "super minister" for Foreign Affairs and Security and Romano Prodi, the EU’s president, 11 groups and seven individuals had been added to the EU’s list of "terrorist" organisations and persons,, notably the Kurdistan Workers’ Party (PKK) and the Iranian People’s Mojahedeen Organisation (MKO).
The EU move was a significant gesture towards both Turkey, a NATO ally and a candidate for EU membership, and Iran, with which Brussels is developing closer ties.
However, like the United States and Britain, the MKO’s political branch known as National Council of Resistance (NCR) that is completely dominated by the Baghdad-based organisation was spared.
Diplomats said the "terrorist" designation would not cover the NCR, which has its headquarter near Paris and is headed by Mrs. Maryam Rajavi, the wife of the MKO’s leader Masoud Rajavi, chosen by the organisation as Iran’s next president.
Other groups added were a Turkish leftist urban guerrilla group, the Revolutionary People's Liberation Party (DHKP/C), Aska Tasuna, a Spanish Basque separatist group less well-known than ETA, and Shining Path, the Peruvian leftist group.
Three groups operating in India, including Kashmiri militant group Lashkar-e-Taiba, were also included in the list, part of the EU's efforts to combat terrorism after the September 11 attacks on the United States.
So were the Japanese doomsday sect Aum Shinrikyo, Colombian rightist militia United Self-Defense Forces of Colombia (AUC) and al-Gama'a al-Islamia (Islamic Group), Egypt's largest Islamic militant group.
The seven individuals added were all linked to ETA, the main Spanish Basque separatist group, diplomats said.
But contrary to the United States, EU omitted to enlist the Popular Front for the Liberation of Palestine (PFLP), a Damascus-based Marxist organisation opposed to peace with Israel
Leaders of the PKK, left off the first EU list drafted last December, have warned the Europeans against the ban, saying it could spark outrage among the many Kurdish immigrants living in the 15-nation bloc.
The PKK has battled the army in southeast Turkey since 1984 in a conflict in which more than 30,000 people have died, but it called off the armed campaign after the 1999 arrest, in Kenya, of its leader Abdollah Ocalan, who is in prison in Turkey awaiting the outcome of an appeal against the death sentence.
The PKK decided this month to change its name to the Kurdistan Freedom and Democracy Congress. ENDS EU TERRORIST LIST 3502