Albanian PM warns MKO to leave Albania if it’s after fighting Iran

Albania’s Prime Minister Edi Rama says the Mujahedin-e-Khalq Organization (MKO) must leave the country if it wants to use Albanian soil to fight against Iran.

In an interview with the German magazine Der Spiegel published on Friday, Rama said Albania has played host to the MKO “for several years” but the group is not allowed to use the country as a platform for its political operations.

He said Albania has no intention of being at war with Iran and “does not accept anyone who has abused our hospitality.”

Rama castigated the MKO’s use of Albania as a “trench in a war that is not ours” and said the group has the right to fight for its freedom “but to do so they must leave Albania.”

The Albanian prime minister acknowledged his country’s good relations with the United States, which encouraged Tirana to agree to the request of then US President Barack Obama in 2016 to accept thousands of MKO members. “We opened our doors because the group, then operating from Iraq, was systematically followed,” Rama said.

The MKO has carried out numerous terrorist attacks against Iranian civilians and government officials since the victory of the Islamic Revolution in Iran in 1979. Out of the nearly 17,000 Iranians killed in terrorist attacks over the past four decades, about 12,000 have fallen victim to MKO’s acts of terror.

Albanian police forces raided a camp belonging to the MKO on June 20 due to its engagement in “terror and cyber attacks” against foreign institutions. Albanian authorities seized 150 computer devices linked to terrorist activities. At least one person was killed and dozens of others were injured during the clashes at the camp, known as Ashraf-3, in the northwest of Tirana.

Reports suggest that an MKO member killed in the raid was a high-profile commander of the terrorist group named Abdolvahhab Faraji. He was said to be an expert in military engineering operations, and was apparently in charge of technical and engineering activities during an anti-Iran operation by MKO terrorists in July 1988.