Iran blasts France for hosting opposition meeting

Iran's foreign ministry strongly criticised France, Monday, for hosting a meeting of an exiled Iranian opposition group that Tehran considers a "terrorist" organisation.

On Saturday, the National Council of Resistance of Iran (NCRI) , an exile group based in a Parisian suburb, held its yearly mass meeting at the Villepinte conference center outside the French capital.

"Instead of compensating for the gross mistakes of the past in supporting the murderers of the Iranian people...the French statesmen are providing the arena for the gathering of the terrorists," according to Iranian Foreign Ministry spokesman Nasser in a statement.

He urged the French government "to heed the demands" of its own people, referring to a recent wave of violent street protests, instead of "supporting terrorist groups."

Suspected bomb plot

Former US vice president Mike Pence and British ex-prime minister Liz Truss attended the Iranian opposition meeting which French police had initially banned.

In 2018, the NCRI gathering in Villepinte was the target of a suspected bomb plot involving local operatives and the Vienna-based diplomat Assadollah Assadi, who was sentenced to 20 years in prison as the 'mastermind'.

He was released earlier this year in exchange for Belgian humanitarian worker Olivier Vandecasteele.

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The NCRI and its militant wing, the People's Mujahedeen, or Mujaheddin-e-Khalk, or MEK, was founded in 1965 by Massoud Rajavi, as a militant opposition group fighting the Shah and organised around a strict Marxist-Leninist hierarchy.

Initially the group aimed to link up with Ayatollah Khomeini, but the religious leader banned them instead after he successfully overthrew the regime of the Shah in 1979.

The MEK reacted with a massive, nationwide bombing campaign, which Tehran answered with waves of arrests and executions.

The group then found refuge in Iraq where they were trained by troops of Saddam Hussein who put tanks and military equipment at their disposal.

After Saddam's demise, they eventually moved to a camp in Albania, funded by $20 million (€17 million) from the US meant to used to “de-radicalise” the groups' 3,000 members.

MEK In France

Meanwhile, the political wing of the MEK, the NCRI, and their current leader, Maryam Rajavi,had found refuge in Auvers-sur-Oise, a small town outside Paris, where they reside in a walled compound in an uneasy relationship with the French government.

Rajavi is the wife of the group's founder Massoud Rajavi who disappeared in 2003. It is not known if he is still alive.

(With newsagencies)