The U.N. chief is urging some 1,200 Iranian exiles who are refusing to leave Camp Ashraf to cooperate with Iraqi authorities and resettle in a new refugee camp near Baghdad.
U.N. Secretary-General Ban Ki-moon on Wednesday also urged other countries to give asylum to the People's Mujahedeen Organization of Iran, an exiled Iranian dissident group that had waged a campaign from foreign bases to overthrow Iran's clerical government.
The exile group, also known by its Farsi name, Mujahedeen-e-Khalq, have already moved about 2,000 of its residents from Camp Asraf in northern Iraq to a Baghdad refugee camp, Camp Hurriya, which is a former U.S. military base. But they ignored a July 20 deadline to move the remaining 1,200 members, saying they will not go until they see proof of more water, increased electricity, better facilities for sick and disabled people and other improvements to the base. The U.N. says the services there are already far better than at most other refugee camps worldwide.