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MKO not allowed to engage in politicking in Albania, says minister

Thursday, 06 October 2022 2:55 AM [ Last Update: Thursday, 06 October 2022 2:56 AM ]

Belinda Balluku, Albania's minister of infrastructure and energy

Albania, which has been hosting thousands of members of the anti-Iran terrorist cult of the Mujahedin-e-Khalq Organization (MKO), says the group is not allowed to engage in "political activity" on its soil.

Albania's Top Channel television network cited the country's minister of infrastructure and energy on Wednesday as saying.

Belinda Balluku alleged that the group was being accommodated on the Albanian territory on "humanitarian grounds," and were, therefore, not authorized to "do any other activity."

"The MKO has an agreement with the government regarding permitted and unauthorized activities," she highlighted, saying that, "We have increased [our] attention [on the group], and are discussing the entire relationship and the field of freedom of action that they have."

"It should not be forgotten that the MKO...did not come [here] as a political group," said Belinda Balluku.

The terrorist group is responsible for causing the largest part of the 17,000-plus fatalities that have been resulted by acts of terror since the 1979 victory of Iran's Islamic Revolution.

Families of Iranian victims of terror slam Albania for hosting MKO terrorists

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In 1986, Iran asked France to expel the group from its base in Paris, following which it moved its base to Iraq.

The group's members spent many years in Iraq, where they were hosted and armed by the former Iraqi dictator Saddam Hussein. They sided with Saddam during the 1980-88 war against Iran and then helped him quell uprisings in various parts of the Arab country.

Albania started hosting the terrorists after the cult was shunned by the government of former Iraqi prime minister Nouri al-Maliki.