State Department removes Iranian group from list of terror organizations

Secretary of State Hillary Clinton officially delisted the Mujahedin-e-Khalq (MEK) from the department’s list of terrorist organizations on Friday, ending a years-long battle by the Iranian dissident group to be removed from the list.

The State Department said the in a statement that the decision was made after taking into account “the MEK’s public renunciation of violence, the absence of confirmed acts of terrorism by the MEK for more than a decade, and their cooperation in the peaceful closure of Camp Ashraf, their historic paramilitary base [in Iraq].”

The statement said that while the agency has taken the group off the list of terror organizations, it still “has serious concerns about the MEK as an organization,” citing allegations of abuse committed against its own members.

Clinton indicated last week that the State Department would take the group off the terror list, saying that the closure of Camp Ashraf near the Iraq-Iran border was a “key factor” in the move to delist the MEK.

The group was placed on the State Department's terror list in 1997, but it renounced its violent tactics and abandoned operations in 2003, turning over its weapons to American forces in Iraq that year.

The push to delist the MEK had many supporters in Congress, as well as on K Street and among former government officials.

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