mr president the situation of camp ashraf home to three five hundred members of the main democratic opposition of iran the pmoi has been of great concern for some time and has been the subject of several resolutions in this house in recent years
together with a delegation of four members of this house i visited camp ashraf in october last year and met with american iraqi and un officials there
they all reinforced our concern for the legal status of ashraf's residents because its security was transferred from american troops to iraqi forces at the beginning of this year
the situation has got much worse since then
the iranian supreme leader in an official announcement at the end of february asked the visiting iraqi president to implement the mutual agreement to close down camp ashraf and expel all its residents from iraq
since then iraqi forces have started a siege around the camp
iraqi troops have been preventing entry of families of ashraf residents parliamentary delegations human rights organisations lawyers journalists and even doctors to the camp and do not allow many logistical materials to get into ashraf
this parliament therefore found it absolutely necessary to address this as an urgency issue at this stage
we have now worked together with all groups and produced a common text which is well balanced and addresses all our concerns on this matter and calls on international bodies to find a long-term legal status for ashraf residents
unfortunately there are some amendments tabled by some of the spokesmen for tehran those who believe the lies told by tehran
i think we should understand clearly that these are contrary to the security of the residents of ashraf and we should vote against them
we urge all colleagues to stick to the joint text and reject any amendments
