Al-Masry Al-Youm has learnt that the delegation of the Iranian People's Mujahedin group, which has visited Cairo over the past few days, left Egypt yesterday after meeting a few Egyptian human rights organizations. The delegation had come to seek international support against the Iraqi government's announcement that it would expel more than 3,500 members of the group currently living in the Ashraf City camp in Iraq. Al-Masry Al-Youm exclusively printed this news yesterday. The Egyptian Ministry of Foreign Affairs denied meeting the Iranian delegation or having anything to do with it. Speaking on condition of anonymity, a source close to the group told Al-Masry Al-Youm that the delegation had not come to talk to the media but to seek the help of Egyptian (and international) human rights organizations in favor of the movement's refugees in Iraq. The source affirmed that the movement was not seeking political asylum for its members but was indeed trying to reiterate that it has the right to stay in Iraq and that the Iraqi government is not entitled to expel them or handing them to the Iranian authorities. Ambassador Hussein Horeda, Assistant Foreign Minister for Asian Affairs, said he had not received any delegation of that Iranian opposition group. Answering a question by Al-Masry Al-Youm, he said the Ministry of Foreign Affairs does not deal with this organization and has never met with it. For his part, Ambassador Mokhlis Kotb, Secretary General of the National Council for Human Rights (NCHR), said the delegation had tried to get in contact with the Council officials to explain the group's problems and seek the Council's help. However, the officials advised those representatives to go to the United Nations High Commission for Refugees (UNHCR) in Cairo, as it is the body responsible for this issue.
