TEHRAN – A member of Iran’s Parliament National Security and Foreign Policy Committee on Sunday lambasted Palestinian President Mahmoud Abbas’s meeting with MKO ringleader, saying it is “contrary to international norms.” 

According to Palestinian media outlets, Mahmoud Abbas met with Mojahedin Khalq Organization ringleader Maryam Rajavi in Paris, talking allegedly on the latest regional developments and the recent MKO rally in Paris. 
“Backing the terrorist group in any sort by any institution or country whatsoever runs counter to international norms and regulations and draws the Iranian people’s ire,”  Valiolla Nanvakenari said, according to ICANA. 
“It came as a surprise to me to hear Mahmud Abbas was sitting as one side of the meeting and has done such cheap act,” he explained. 
The MP stressed that the meeting is no healer for the Palestinians as terrorists cannot help Palestine which is a victim of terrorism itself.
“How can a terrorist (Maryam Rajavi) help resolve the problem of Palestine which has been a target for terrorist attacks, and moreover MKO members cooperate with the Zionist regime.” 

Weeks before the meeting Iran had summoned French ambassador to Tehran over the MKO rally in Paris on July 9 where former Saudi intelligence chief Bandar bin Sultan had vowed support for the group. 

“It came as a surprise to me to hear Mahmud Abbas was sitting as one side of the meeting and has done such cheap act,” MP Valiolla Nanvakenari explains. 

The MKO has existed as an Islamist-Marxist group since 1965, when it fought against the Mohammad Reza Pahlavi regime. It carried out a number of attacks against U.S. soldiers stationed in Iran and years later it was put on the U.S. State Department terrorist list. 
After the 1979 Islamic Revolution, the group resorted to bombings and assassinations. Iran accuses the group of being responsible for 17,000 deaths. 
In the 1980s and 1990s, the MKO was responsible for several terrorist campaigns within Iran, one of which killed some 70 Iranian officials in 1981, including both the president and prime minister at the time.
Backed by the Saddam regime, the MKO also launched a military attack on Iran in 1987, one week after UN Resolution 598 brought the war between the Iraq-Iran war to a halt. 
According to Hossein Mousavian, former Iranian ambassador to Germany, the MKO is thought by many to be involved in assassination of Iranian nuclear scientists, perhaps with the assistance of Israel. According to a 2012 NBC News report, Israel was “training MEK members” to carry out the killings. 
Mousavian also quoted an Iranian official as saying Saudi Arabia had increased its financial support of the terrorist group up to 800 percent in the past two years. 

AK/PA