NCRI - In step with the Iranian people’s uprising for freedom, the residents of Camp Ashraf, members of the People's Mojahedin Organization of Iran (PMOI) in Iraq, whose seven-year perseverance has served as an example of steadfastness and resistance for the Iranian people and youth in the face of religious dictatorship, have advised US and Iraqi officials that, like other Iranian exiles and volunteers, they are prepared to return to their homeland under the following conditions:

1. The Iranian regime, in an official letter addressed to the United Nations, the International Committee of the Red Cross (ICRC), and the Governments of the United States and Iraq, the contents of which should be verified and guaranteed by the said parties, make the commitment that if the residents of Ashraf, whose names are on a list available to the US and Iraqi authorities, return to Iran, they will enjoy immunity from arrest, prosecution, torture, execution, and formation of any criminal record and that they will enjoy freedom of speech.

2. The ICRC and the United Nations must undertake to closely monitor the implementation of the regime’s commitment inside Iran, and be continuously accessible to the volunteers who would return to Iran from Ashraf in successive groups. The second and subsequent groups will return to Iran after sufficient time intervals to test the regime’s commitment to any pledge regarding the first group.

3. The Iraqi Government must immediately allow the lawyers of Ashraf residents who have not had access to their clients for the past seven months to go to Ashraf and meet with them. The Iraqi Government must give written assurances that the residents of Ashraf may sell their real property, and may take their personal property with them.

4. The United Nations High Commissioner for Refugees must recognize as refugees and make arrangements for the transfer to third countries of those not willing to go back to Iran.
5. The Iranian regime’s letter must be verified and approved by the four above-mentioned bodies and notified to the residents of Ashraf.

If the Iranian regime were to accept these conditions, members of the PMOI and their supporters across the world would return to Iran under the supervision of and registration with the United Nations and the ICRC.

However, if the Iranian regime does not accept these conditions and refuses to provide such a letter to the said parties, it will become clear that all the previous claims by this regime not to harm the residents of Ashraf and other members and sympathizers of the PMOI if they return to Iran were merely political and propaganda ploys. In that case, the Government of Iraq must abide by and implement the April 24, 2009 resolution of the European Parliament.

Until now, the Iraqi Government had insisted that the residents of Ashraf must leave Iraq and go to Iran or an unspecified third country.  The proposal for the return of volunteers to Iran completely neutralizes the Iranian regime's pressures on the nascent Iraqi Government about the residents of Ashraf.  Accordingly, the residents of Ashraf no longer require the Iraqi government to acknowledge their legal status. Moreover, there is no basis for their displacement inside Iraq or for the Iraqi police to enter Ashraf.

I call on the international community, especially the United States of America, to ask the Iraqi Government to implement the European Parliament resolution and end the siege of Ashraf until the Iranian regime accepts these conditions. Otherwise, the United States Government must take responsibility for the protection of the residents of Ashraf. The current plight of Ashraf is the outcome of the war, the bombing, and the disarming of its residents by the US forces.  An agreement was signed between each and every resident of Ashraf and the US forces governing their status until their final disposition.  I call upon the United States to honor that agreement.

Secretariat of the National Council of Resistance of Iran