Pat Dollard | Young Americans

TEHRAN (FNA)- Iran’s Foreign Ministry summoned Jordan’s ambassador to Tehran over his country’s support for the anti-Islamic Republic terrorist group, the Mojahedin-e Khalq Organization (MKO).

The Foreign Ministry’s Department for Middle East Affairs summoned Jordanian envoy Ahmad Jalal al-Meflah on Monday and expressed Tehran’s disapproval over the attendance of 12 Jordanian parliamentarians at a rally in Paris on Sunday.

A total of thirty-three Jordanian officials attended the rally organized by the Mojahedin-e Khalq Organization (MKO). The demonstration was directed at pressuring the European Union into removing the group from its list of terrorist groups.

Al-Meflah, for his part, said Jordanian King Abdullah II bin al-Hussein will not recognize the terrorist group. He added that Tehran’s concerns will, however, be conveyed to Amman.

The Iraqi government has ordered the MKO to lay down its weapons and leave the country.

The MKO is regarded as a terrorist group by West and much of the international community.

The MKO is on the European Union’s list of terrorist organizations subject to an EU-wide assets freeze. The group benefits from American support, while it has ironically been designated by the US government as a foreign terrorist organization.

Formed in the 1960s in opposition to the rule of the US-backed Shah, the MKO took part in the 1979 Islamic revolution but then took up arms against the Islamic republic.

Leaders of the group have been fighting to shed its terrorist tag after a series of bloody anti-Western attacks in the 1970s, and nearly 30 years of violent struggle against the Islamic Republic of Iran.

It killed several of Iran’s new leaders in the early years after the revolution and moved to Iraq in the early 1980s, where it carried out terrorist acts against the Iranian people until the United States invaded in 2003.

The MKO backed Iraqi dictator Saddam Hussein in the 1980-1988 imposed war on Iran.