Iran said the European Union would be committing a "political" act and may worsen relations if it struck the exiled People's Mujahedeen of Iran from a blacklist of terrorist groups, Bloomberg reported.
"The record of the Mujahedeen's actions is very heavy, and if the EU decides to remove them from the terrorist list, it will be a conscious political decision," Foreign Ministry spokesman Hassan Qashqavi told the Iranian Labour News Agency. He said such a move would show a "double-standards approach towards terrorism."
The People's Mujahedeen, which is considered a terrorist group by the U.S., was formed in 1965 to resist the ruling Shah and took part in the 1979 revolution. It then turned against the new Islamic regime and went on to support Saddam Hussein during the eight-year Iran-Iraq war in the 1980s. The EU will decide whether to take the group off the terror list this week.
The European Court of First Instance in Luxembourg ruled in December that the Mujahedeen hadn't been given the opportunity to properly rebut a July 2008 decision that kept it on the terror list. A relaxation of restrictions on the group may inflame tensions between Europe and the nation's clerical leadership, just as President Barack Obama is considering greater U.S. engagement with Iran.
About 700 Iranians rallied around the French embassy in Tehran today to protest the coming decision, according to the state-run Fars news agency. "Europe, shame on you, let go of the hypocrites," the report said the demonstrators shouted.
The Mujahedeen says it renounced military activity in June 2001, a year before the French and British governments persuaded the EU to blacklist it and freeze its assets.