UN, Iraq agree on Camp Ashraf resettlement plan

The United Nations and the Iraqi government have signed an agreement to relocate several thousand Iranian exiles living in a camp in northeastern Iraq, the U.N.'s office in Baghdad announced Sunday.              

But it's not clear yet whether the camp's residents have signed off on the deal.            

In a statement late Sunday, the United Nations Assistance Mission for Iraq said the agreement establishes a process to move the residents of Camp Ashraf to a temporary location. It did not give a timeline for the move or specify the new location.            

A statement from U.S. Secretary of State Hillary Clinton said the residents would be moved to Camp Liberty, a former U.S. military base near the Baghdad International Airport.              

"At this new location, the UN High Commission for Refugees will be able to conduct refugee status determinations for the residents of Ashraf  a necessary first step toward resettlement to third countries," the statement said.              

The People's Mujahedeen Organization of Iran first moved to Camp Ashraf during the regime of Saddam Hussein, who saw the group as a convenient ally against Tehran. The group is committed to the overthrow of the Iranian regime, and sided with Iraq in the war against Iran in the 1980s.            

The group carried out a series of bombings and assassinations against Iran's clerical regime in the 1980s and fought alongside Saddam's forces in the Iran-Iraq war. But the group says it renounced violence in 2001. U.S. soldiers disarmed them during the invasion of Iraq in 2003.

AP