Several hundred Iranian exiles arrived at a UN-approved site near Baghdad on Saturday, a first step in a process that aims to see them resettled outside Iraq, where they have been based for decades. The move is part of a December 25 deal between the UN and Iraq, reached after extensive talks, under which around 3,400 Iranians opposed to the regime in Tehran are to move from their long-time base, Camp Ashraf, to a new location called Camp Liberty, with the aim of eventually moving them to other countries.
"We are arriving at the gate to (Camp) Liberty," Behzad Saffari, the legal adviser for residents of Camp Ashraf, told AFP by telephone around 6:00 am (0300 GMT). The 397 exiles had departed Camp Ashraf in 18 buses beginning about 1:30 am on Saturday (2230 GMT on Friday), escorted by Iraqi security forces, Saffari said. He said the buses were being checked with scanners at the gate to Camp Liberty, near the Baghdad airport.
The departing exiles and their belongings were also searched prior to their departure in a lengthy process that began around 2:00 pm (1100 GMT) on Friday and lasted nearly 12 hours, Saffari said. Iraq had previously aimed, by the end of last year, to close Camp Ashraf in Diyala province, which now-executed dictator Saddam Hussein allowed the People's Mujahedeen Organisation of Iran (PMOI) to set up during his 1980-88 war with Iran.
But Prime Minister Nuri al-Maliki said on December 21 that his government had agreed to extend the deadline to April, and signed the deal with the UN on moving the exiles a few days later. UN envoy to Iraq Martin Kobler was present when the exiles arrived at Camp Hurriya and welcomed their safe relocation.
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